Ratings are out for Game One of the 2021 NBA Finals. According to Sports Business Journal’s John Ourand, a total of 8.56 million people watched Game 1 between the Milwaukee Bucks and the Phoenix Suns.
That is a 35% drop from the same game two years ago when the Golden State Warriors battled the Toronto Raptors without their star forward Kevin Durant. July is historically a bad month for TV ratings, but this is a halt to positive vibes the league was producing over the opening rounds of the playoffs.
When comparing to last year’s Finals held in September/October, Game One ratings were up 15%. The broadcast peaked with 10 million viewers as the game entered crunchtime around 11:15 p.m. ET.
ESPN also pinpointed stellar ratings in the hometown team’s markets which shouldn’t come as a surprise for a Bucks team that hasn’t reached the Finals since 1971 and a Suns team that hasn’t been there since 1993. The broadcast drew a 23.9 rating in the Milwaukee market, the best since 2001, and a 23.7 rating in the Phoenix market, the best since 2000.
Ourand also dove deeper into the numbers and found massive dropoffs in some of the country’s largest markets like New York City, Chicago, Washington D.C., and Philadelphia.
Philly and New York ratings were down 56% from the same game in 2019. All while Chicago saw a 51% drop off and D.C. had half of their audience lost from 2019. Among TV markets, Phoenix ranks 11th and Milwaukee ranks 37th. Not exactly the most ideal locales for trying to gauge broad national interest.
Another minor factor in the lower ratings was the Tampa, Florida ABC affiliate didn’t air the game, instead following news coverage of Tropical Storm Elsa. One game doesn’t make a whole series so we’ll have to see if the Bucks can respond from their Game One loss and extend the NBA’s TV window a little farther in this series.