NBA Finals TV viewership in the U.S. 2000-2023

The 2023 NBA Finals were watched by an average of 11.64 million viewers in the United States. This marked a decline from the previous year when over 12 million viewers tuned in to watch the Golden State Warriors beat the Boston Celtics 4-2.

How did the 2023 Finals play out?

The 2023 championship series was contested between the Denver Nuggets, champions of the Western Conference, and the Miami Heat, winners of the Eastern Conference. The Nuggets emerged victorious in the best-of-seven playoff, seeing the franchise enter the list of NBA championship title winners for the first time. On their way to their first title, the Nugget’s center Nikola Jokić also won his first NBA Finals MVP. However, Jokić still has some way to go to make the list of players with the most NBA Finals MVP awards.

How did viewership compare to other major US sporting events?

In 2023, NBA Finals viewership was only a fraction of the number of viewers of the Super Bowl in the U.S., with the latter exceeding 115 million that year. However, when compared with the average TV viewership of the World Series, it was apparent that the NBA Finals weren’t alone in experiencing a declining number of TV viewers in recent years, with viewership for the World Series dropping from 23.4 million in 2016 to 11.8 million in 2022.