SBJ Media: NBA riding broadcast TV to big gains

It’s a small band of sports media misfits out there covering this beat. One of the first of that group that I got to know was Richard Deitsch, back when he was at Sports Illustrated. We communicated often, and I’ve always enjoyed coming on his podcast. Flash-forward some 12 years later, and it’s beyond cool to say we’re colleagues. I know the skill and industry expertise that Richard brings to the table, and I’m looking forward to having him be a strong part of SBJ.

The NBA is beginning 2026 with viewership up 18% from the same period last season, as added games on broadcast TV — and fewer on cable — plus another strong Christmas have helped boost gains in Year 1 of a new media deal. Games across ABC/ESPN, NBC and Prime Video have averaged 2.02 million viewers to date, up over what ABC/ESPN and TNT/truTV had at the start of 2025. That average goes closer to 1.8 million if one were to include the nonexclusive games airing on NBA TV.

Looking at regional delivery of games, 17 of 29 teams in the U.S. are seeing season-over-season gains thus far. Many of those teams are currently in business with Main Street Sports Group, which missed RSN payments to a number of those franchises recently.

NBC saw a strong start with its package on Oct. 21 and hasn’t looked back. That was the best NBA Tip-Off doubleheader in 15 years. Coast 2 Coast Tuesday (primarily regionalized windows) then debuted Oct. 28, with the Dec. 2 Knicks-Celtics game becoming the best pre-Christmas audience for the NBA on a Tuesday since 1996. Across all Tuesday games, NBC is averaging 2.9 million viewers, up 87% from the same Tuesday prime-time window last season. The company would not disclose Peacock-specific numbers for games on Monday night windows, but those are no doubt lower than linear TV had previously.

ESPN and ABC are up 30% season-to-date, albeit with fewer games on cable TV this season under the new media deal. The networks are averaging 2.53 million viewers, which includes the ABC Christmas games and a mix of midweek and weekend games on ESPN.

Prime Video’s debut NBA season is seeing the service average 1.2 million viewers per game. Looking at just comparable windows to last season, Amazon is holding its own — down just 3% from national networks in those windows last season. But in those same comparable windows, viewership among adults 18-34 is up 13%, while adults 18-49 is up 20% and adults 25-54 is up 17%. The Knicks-Spurs Emirates NBA Cup Final remains Prime Video’s best game at 3.1 million viewers.

Like with Prime Video’s NFL games and NASCAR races, the audience is significantly younger than with linear TV. The NBA’s median age on Prime Video is 46.6 years old, which is nearly eight years younger than the NBA on linear TV this season (54.5).

The NBA has also seen a total audience of 115 million people in the U.S. watch national games this season, the best figure for that metric at this point in the season on record (data going back to 2002). The number of viewers across NBC/Peacock, ESPN/ABC, Prime Video and NBA TV is up 85% vs. the same point last year. The NBA has also generated 75 billion video views across social media platforms, up 32% from the same point last season, per data from Videocites.

Brooks Koepka’s shocking return to the PGA Tour — and the tour’s other moves Monday — likely have its network partners salivating ahead of the start of the 2026 season later this week. Koepka will make his first PGA Tour start in nearly four years at the Farmers Insurance Open Jan. 29-Feb. 1, which is CBS’s first tournament of the season. That event is also reverting to a Sunday finish this year after a few seasons of avoiding the NFL’s AFC Championship and wrapping up on Saturday.

Koepka’s return is good news for Golf Channel and NBC over the next few weeks as well. The tour also is giving other LIV Golf members — Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm and Cameron Smith — a chance to return with a window that closes Feb. 2 ahead of LIV’s season. Golf’s version of the transfer portal should add some intrigue to tournament broadcasts, as well as shoulder programming, in the coming weeks.

Golf Channel has coverage of both the Sony Open this week and American Express next. Golf Channel and CBS share coverage of the Farmers Insurance Open.

Another potential benefactor of Koepka’s return? TGL and ESPN. The league has been flexible about bringing in alternate players over its first two seasons, and Koepka lives just down the street from the SoFi Center. He also was spotted mingling with players at a TGL match last year. TGL has played three matches to date in Season 2, averaging 646,000 (ABC), 354,000 (ESPN2) and 516,000 (ESPN).

There was a lot of excitement for a new crop of CFP semifinalists, but with ESPN numbers in for what was an incredible Miami-Ole Miss game, audiences apparently weren’t as thrilled to watch. Last Thursday’s matchup ended up as only one of two semifinals to ever dip below 16 million viewers. The low number for such a great game doesn’t bode particularly well for Indiana’s first-half blowout of Oregon the following night (Friday night has lower HUT levels than Thursday).

Netflix’s first year with WWE’s “Raw” looks like it was a win for the platform. Netflix members watched 525 million hours of WWE content, which includes docuseries. “Raw” on its own accounted for nearly 340 million views, while there were another 185 million views for Premium Live Events aired outside of the U.S. “Raw” has made the Netflix Top 10 in 34 countries, and since its official Netflix debut on Jan. 6, 2025, the show has made the global English-language Top 10 nearly every week it’s been on service (47 out of a possible 52 weeks).

ESPN’s 2025 was its best year since 2017, averaging 790,000 viewers on a total-day basis. The combo of all ESPN networks also accounted for 35% of sports audience last year, tops among all companies (ESPN alone had 20% share). For ESPN and ABC, sports on those two networks delivered the best year for the company since 2014. A number of studio shows also performed well for ESPN. My favorite stat there: “PTI” is still the company’s best midweek studio show at 679,000 viewers per episode, and that was up 5% year-over-year.

I’d be a little concerned if I am Unrivaled after seeing the opening night numbers for Season 2 on TNT/truTV, but not in panic mode. This often happens with Year 2 elsewhere. The UFL went lower in Season 2, and TGL numbers have been softer at the start as well this season.

Yankees-Red Sox used to be the bell cow for “Sunday Night Baseball” viewership on ESPN. Annually, it was the most-watched game(s) of the season for that package. ESPN last season had three such matchups in the regular season. But NBC, which released its “SNB” schedule for 2026, has that matchup just once on its slate this season.

Have you noticed a bunch of new brands with spots during the College Football Playoff games? That’s because Disney Advertising Sales brought aboard 40 new advertisers for this season’s CFP. Andrew Messina, Disney Advertising’s SVP/sales, told my colleague Josh Carpenter that there’s been “massive demand” around the title game, which sold out well in advance of knowing it would be an Indiana-Miami matchup.

Proxy fight! The David Ellison vs. David Zaslav fight got a little more heated on Monday, as Paramount Skydance sent a letter to shareholders at Warner Bros. Discovery saying it intends to nominate directors for WBD’s board and that it filed a lawsuit to force the company to disclose basic information about the bidding process. This could be a drawn-out legal process for the future of WBD, but don’t count out PSKY and Ellison just yet.

• The latest installment of SBJ’s “On My Mind” video series features Playfly Sports CEO Craig Sloan, who explains how the understanding of content consumption is a major opportunity in the sports industry.
• The latest episode of the SBJ Sports Media Podcast delves into the Main Street Sports Group saga, putting a bow on NFL regular-season viewership and college football, including an interview with ESPN’s Bryan Jaroch about putting on CFP MegaCast.
• Sports accounted for a record-tying 96 of the top 100 most-watched telecasts in 2025, as well as 181 of the top 200 telecasts, which equates to 90.5% of the overall top 200. That’s down from 182 in 2024, which had the Paris Olympic Games. Setting a new high-water mark among the top 100 in 2025 was college football, which put a record eight games on the list amid the expanded College Football Playoff field.
• Prime Video rolled out its first promo for the Masters during the Packers-Bears NFC Wild Card game on Saturday night.
• The NFL finished with its second-best regular-season viewership on record, with the 2025 slate averaging 18.7 million viewers. That’s behind only an average of 19 million viewers in 1989 (records on season viewership date back to 1988). This season was up 10% from 2024.
• Bowl Season averaged just under 3 million viewers for the 2025-26 season, which counts all non-CFP games. That’s up 14% from last season and includes games across ESPN, ESPN2, ABC, Fox, CBS and the CW. Also: ESPN drew its third-best FCS Championship game on record on Monday night, as Montana State’s win in OT over Illinois State drew 2.3 million viewers.