NBA regular season audience sees marked increase in year one of rights deal

Key Points:

• The 2025-26 NBA regular season averaged 1.78 million viewers across ESPN/ABC, NBCUniversal, and Amazon Prime Video, marking a 16% increase from last year on ESPN/ABC and TNT, and a 35% rise when including NBA TV.
• NBCUniversal led with 2.8 million average viewers, a 109% increase from last season, driven by Sunday and Tuesday night games, with "Sunday Night Basketball" averaging 3.4 million viewers—the highest since 2015-16.
• ABC's viewership declined slightly to 2.3 million due to external factors like game postponements and the absence of Stephen Curry, while ESPN saw a modest increase to 1.4 million viewers, reaching its highest combined ESPN/ABC average since 2018-19.
• Amazon Prime Video, in its first full NBA season package, averaged 1.0 million viewers, slightly down 2% from last year’s comparable windows, but showed strong growth among younger demographics, with median viewer age nearly ten years younger than other broadcasters.
• The NBA’s overall viewership gains outpaced other major sports, with this season being the most-watched on primary broadcast partners in seven years and across all networks in 13 years, despite changes in Nielsen’s measurement methodologies.