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ABC passed the first test of its final week.
The network saw large crowds for the opening games of both the NHL Stanley Cup Finals on Tuesday and the NBA Finals on Wednesday. Both TV shows were the best of the decade for the first game from either series.
Starting with the biggest audience: Game 1 of the NBA Finals between the New York Knicks and San Antonio Spurs averaged 16.93 million viewers, the best for a series opener since 2018. Wednesday’s game was up 90 percent from Game 1 last year (8.91 million). The Knicks’ 105-95 win in San Antonio drew the fifth-most viewers for an NBA Finals opener in the 24 years that ABC owned the rights to the series, following the four straight matchups between the Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers from 2015-18.
Having a team from the country’s largest media market in the Knicks certainly helped ABC. The Spurs, led by rising star Victor Wimpanyama, were also a big draw during the postseason: their Western Conference Finals matchup against the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder drew 15.9 million viewers on NBC and Peacock.
On Tuesday, Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals brought 4.78 million viewers to watch the Las Vegas Golden Knights defeat the Carolina Hurricanes 5-4. The game was up 54 percent from ABC’s last Stanley Cup opener in 2024 (3.11 million) and nearly doubled the 2.42 million who watched last year’s first game on TNT and TruTV.
The Golden Knights’ win was the largest audience for Game 1 of the Cup Finals since the 2019 series between the Boston Bruins and St. Louis Blues, which drew 5.25 million viewers. It was also the biggest Stanley Cup Finals series opener ever on ESPN/ABC, including when it acquired the rights in 1994 and 2000–04.
In both the NBA and NHL, the rise in ratings for the first games of the Finals continues a pattern from previous playoff rounds. Both leagues saw larger postseason audiences this year via their various media partners.
Nielsen made changes to its methodology this season, including adding a big data component and collecting more out-of-home data, which overall resulted in higher numbers for live sports. But the gains from the NBA and NHL Finals openers far outweigh the marginal gains from those changes.
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