While much of the discussion surrounding the NBA this week will be about its controversial All-Star Weekend, there’s one positive commissioner Adam Silver can point to — local game telecasts are up five percent compared to last year.
According to data provided by Sports Business Journal, 18 franchises saw their linear TV viewership increase year-to-year through Feb. 6. The franchises that saw the most growth are the defending NBA champion Denver Nuggets (up 139 percent on Altitude,) the Minnesota Timberwolves (up 107 percent on Bally Sports North,) the Phoenix Suns (up 94 percent on over-the-air Arizona’s Family,) the Orlando Magic (up 76 percent on Bally Sports Florida) and the Spurs (up 54 percent on Bally Sports Southwest.) Execs credit the NBA’s In-Season Tournament for “galvanizing fanbases early in the regular season.”
“What our analysis found is that the In-Season Tournament weeks saw an uptick and that carried over to a halo effect for every week since,’’ Playfly Head of Research Gregg Liebman said to SBJ. “This is just on linear TV and doesn’t even account for any streaming versus last year. But we’re talking about over 900 games into the season that have aired across these RSNs [and over-the-air channels], and it reinforces that much of the viewing is happening not on the national games, but is happening on a daily basis through these regional sports members.’’
However, the reality is that fans of these teams are in a prime position to watch on a nightly basis. The Timberwolves are, as of Feb. 19, the top seed in the Western Conference, while the Nuggets and Suns are the fourth and fifth seeds, respectively. The Magic were at one point one of the top seeds in the Eastern Conference before a rough January knocked them down to the eighth seed. Meanwhile, the Spurs are home to the NBA’s top prospect and likely Rookie of the Year candidate Victor Wembanyama.
“Twice as many teams are up in the NBA over being down,’’ said Playfly Sports President Craig Sloan to SBJ. “That’s not normally the case. It should be 50-50 — somebody’s winning, somebody’s losing. Usually, interest will wane in markets where a team’s losing, and the others will go up. But having two-thirds of your teams in a positive growth is a good story. … If you look at it, the local market part of the ecosystem is really strong.’’
SBJ cites the Washington Wizards, who despite being one of the worst teams are still outperforming other sports options in the area. While linear broadcasts of Wizards games on Monumental Network are down 35 percent from last season, they are still outperforming head-to-head programming on FS1 94 percent of the time, ESPN2 85 percent of the time, TNT 74 percent of the time, and TBS 51 percent of the time.
“[A national game] might be huge in two markets,’’ Sloan said. “But it actually proves out to be better [in the regular season]. People are into it during the regular season. There has been a common prevailing thought that regular season in the NBA doesn’t matter. … But it’s just not playing out that way in reality.’’
