The Knicks’ first NBA title in 53 years helped the league see its best NBA Finals viewership since Michael Jordan’s last championship in 1998, as well as the best overall playoff figure in 28 years.
The five-game Knicks-Spurs NBA Finals averaged 20.6 million viewers on ABC/ESPN, marking the best figure since Bulls-Jazz averaged just over 29 million for a six-game series on NBC in 1998. Knicks-Spurs was up 100% from a seven-game Thunder-Pacers NBA Finals last year (10.3 million).
The clinching Game 5 on Saturday night delivered 24.5 million viewers for ABC, which is the best NBA Finals Game 5 since Bulls-Jazz got 30.6 million on NBC in 1998. Saturday night’s game peaked at 33 million viewers during the game’s final moments at 11:15pm ET. The five-game Knicks-Spurs series generated over 15 billion views on social media, the best figure yet for an NBA Finals and nearly 3x the previous record set in 2025. Game 5 generated more than 4 billion views, surpassing the previous single-game record set during Game 4.
The NBA averaged 6.35 million viewers for all playoff games across ABC, ESPN, Prime Video, NBC and Peacock, which is the league’s best figure since 1998. This year’s NBA Playoffs are up 34% from 2025 as well.
