TV Ratings: Game 7 Gives NBA Finals a Six-Year High
The first game seven of an NBA Finals since 2016 delivered a big audience for ABC — and helped the series avoid some historic ratings lows.
The Oklahoma City Thunder’s 103-91 win over the Indiana Pacers averaged 16.35 million viewers, according to fast national figures from Nielsen (that number could change slightly in the final ratings, due early Tuesday). It peaked at 19.28 million from 9:45-10 p.m. ET as the Thunder wrapped up their win. The 16.35 million viewers makes Sunday’s contest the most-watched NBA Finals contest since 2019, when the last two games of that series each drew better than 18 million viewers.
The big tune-in for game seven also helped ABC and ESPN conclude the NBA playoffs on a high note — the two Disney networks’ postseason slate (35 games) averaged 6.12 million viewers, up 10 percent from 2024.
That’s the good news. The downside is that, despite the turnout for Sunday’s broadcast, the 2025 NBA Finals were among the least-watched of this century.
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The seven-game series averaged 10.27 million viewers, of only 2003 (9.86 million viewers) and 2007 (9.29 million) Finals in their regular June window (the COVID-affected 2020 and ‘21 series, played later in the year, also had lower viewership). Prior to Sunday, none of the six Finals telecasts this year topped the 10 million-viewer mark. And even with the spike in viewers compared to the previous games, Sunday’s contest is the least-watched game seven on record. The previous game seven low was 19 million viewers in 2005.
A lot of that comes down to the fact that Oklahoma City and Indianapolis are two of the NBA’s smaller markets. The Thunder and Pacers also ranked 11th and 16th in national TV broadcasts in the 2024-25 regular season (including those on NBA TV), meaning casual fans were somewhat less likely to see them than they were the Los Angeles Lakers, Boston Celtics or Golden State Warriors.
