NBA viewership up in first year of new TV deals, despite fan pushback

The NBA’s new broadcast setup may be frustrating for fans. But it’s working.

As relayed by Awful Announcing, regular-season viewership rose 16 percent year over year, with games averaging 1.78 million viewers across all platforms. That marks the league’s most-watched regular season in seven years.

Not bad for a viewing experience that, in many cases, feels more complicated than ever.

Games are now spread across multiple networks and streaming services. Some nights it’s traditional TV. Other nights it’s Amazon Prime. Or Peacock. Or something else entirely.

For fans, that has meant more searching. More subscriptions. And, in some cases, more frustration.

Still, the numbers suggest the audience is sticking around.

More platforms, it seems, have led to more eyeballs — even if it’s not always easy to find where those eyeballs are supposed to go.

That doesn’t mean fans are thrilled about it. As we’ve seen locally with the Cavaliers and the loss of regional broadcasts, plenty aren’t.

But from a big-picture standpoint, the league isn’t hurting. If anything, it’s trending in the opposite direction.

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