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he NBA return on July 30 in the Orlando bubble saw a 109% increase over Turner Sport’s average domestic viewership for an NBA game so far for the 2019/20 season.
The return was marked with a double-header on TNT, with the Los Angeles Lakers facing the L.A. Clippers, which peaked at 4.1 million viewers with an average of 3.4 million viewers, followed by the Utah Jazz facing the New Orleans Pelicans, which peaked at 3.4 million viewers with an average of 2.1 million.
The average across the two games for domestic viewership on TNT and TV Everywhere platforms of 2.9 million saw the NBA’s return net a 109% increase over the Turner averages for the 2019/20 NBA regular season so far.
Despite the high broadcast numbers, the figure had the potential to be even larger, but the NBA seeding games as part of the league’s return to action are aired by both national and local U.S. broadcast partners.
As part of the return to action, the NBA utilised their partnerships with Microsoft, Verizon, and Anheuser-Busch to enhance the viewing experience for broadcast, adding different camera angles, virtual reality cheering sections for fans, and added microphones to enhance sound effects.
In other basketball news, the WNBA bubble’s four opening games on July 25 and 26 averaged 401,000 viewers across ESPN and ABC, an increase of 63% over the average of the 2019 WNBA regular season.
The WNBA opening games saw a peak of 617,000 viewers for a game between the Sparks and Phoenix Mercury.
