[NBC Sports PR] NBC SPORTS DELIVERS LARGEST NBA ALL-STAR GAME AUDIENCE SINCE 2011, AVERAGING 8.8 MILLION VIEWERS ON NBC, PEACOCK AND TELEMUNDO
Source: https://www.nbcsports.com/press-releases/nbc-sports-delivers-largest-nba-all-star-game-audience-since-2011-averaging-8-8-million-viewers-on-nbc-peacock-and-telemundo
At this rate, might as well let NBC handle the ticketing process so they can actually fill up the seats
SNF is IMO the best NFL broadcast and their premier league coverage is awesome (Rebecca Lowe is the best). Their Olympic coverage is weird, but as a peacock subscriber, I think it’s actually really good. Compared to everyone else NBC does the best job.
Their NBA coverage has been good so far. Analysis is not top notch, however the broadcast presentation is the best.
Love how they show the player intros, really makes games feel big
And it’s still crazy how much better NBC/Peacock’s video quality is too - how tf ESPN can have such worse cameras in this age is utterly baffling
It’s insane to go from NBC back to ABC. Their video quality is pathetic.
The NHL should think about doing the same thing. Wonder if that may stretch NBC too much
It’s 2026 and they’re still broadcasting the games in 720p. It’s pathetic.
I’m excited for their baseball coverage this year too. Apple already does a better job than everyone else I want to see what NBC can do.
NBC has great production.
Hopefully ESPN/ABC seeing that both Peacock/NBC and Amazon Prime have far superior production makes them actually try.
Though we all know they’ll just fight for exclusivity again so they can keep putting out a shit product.
I hate the fetid corpse that is modern ESPN.
It’s because ESPN doesn’t upgrade to keep costs low
Every local broadcaster does this, it’s legit just ESPN and TNT who for whatever reason, stopped doing it.
Agreed.
Prime has a better pre/post-game analysis show with Rooks, Griffin, Wade, Dirk, Nash, etc. but Peacock has the best broadcasters
The Olympic coverage has always been like that. You get a weird collection of broadcasters because many of those sports are very niche, so you get people you’ve never heard of because they know how to explain things about that particular sport. They also have so much going on at the same time on a given day so there’s always a lot of jumping around. The summer Olympics are worse in that regard because they have way more events.
I really wish they would just show the sports and not all the experts. Missed a goal yesterday for USA bs Germany because the experts were talking about a figure skating competition that was happening later on.
You can get those feeds via the peacock app, you don’t need to watch the curated main program
Plus timezones, by prime time in the US they’re just replaying snippets of what already happened
You can watch every single event live on peacock
Helps in the PL when Sky Sports is owned by Comcast.
I’ve mentioned it before on soccer subreddits and such, but I truly believe that the interest in the sport grew massively in large part because of NBC. They saw a time slot that could be taken advantage of (Saturday and Sunday mornings) and pushed hard to expand the game here. I really believe if it was espn or something else it would still not be as big over here. ESPN have the rights to la liga but they never talk about the sport at all.
Most of my friends who got into soccer got into because they are sick of the commercials and because they are have kids. Easier to watch soccer with a kid and only dedicate 2 hours to do it. Plus the English league is on early in the morning for us and we young kids are up early.
I got into in 2012 because I started a job that I needed to be up at 3am. Found myself keeping that same sleep pattern on weekends.
NBC has owned spots for the last month. They do a pretty good job.
Just thankful the Olympics aren’t on abc/espn. That would be a disaster.
Their Olympic coverage is weird
Olympic coverage is always weird, no matter who, because Olympics features a wide range of strange niche sports that need to be explained to the viewer and it makes for awkward commentary haha.
I’ve lived in two other countries during the Olympics — the NBC broadcasts focus on like two or three sports every night but Peacock has the most comprehensive Olympic coverage hands down.
Peacock is quietly the best Streaming app for Sports currently. Premier League coverage is so good, and you can watch Olympic events from beginning to end instead of the clip show that is the main NBC channel coverage is incredible.
NBC is very good but I think Fox beats them in NFL production. But they both clear CBS and definitely Disney
Fox games have an Audio Quality that I hate. I think they pump the fan noise out so every game feels like it’s in an empty dome.
I feel the exact opposite. I think CBS basically mutes the crowd.
CBS’s sports just feels muted overall. Feels like they flatten the energy of games.
Olympics is great. At least one commentator is passionate as fuck about the event because they are in that world.
Which is ironic because they have awful IMSA racing broadcasts. Usually 5 minutes if racing littered with 5 min of commercials.
Their Olympic coverage has gotten infinitely better these past two Olympics because they started showing everything live instead of tape-delaying it for their primetime show.
Their coverage is good but them spreading their games across so many channels is a bummer for me.
To give you some additional context when it comes to ticketing, weekends like this when priced high(obviously blocks out average people) but the high spenders don’t want to spend their last long weekend until May at the All Star Game. You see the same thing happen during Labor Day weekend for the US Open, add on Valentines Day, Olympics, and whatever else, this was a bad weekend for success at the box office mostly self inflicted.
NBC in the past 2 weeks has had the Olympics, Superbowl, and NBA All-star broadcast. They know sports.
Get the Ad-free tier on Peacock and you’ll have the best Olympic experience ever on TV.
You’re probably not going to watch a lot of events live anyway because of the time difference with Italy, and all the Replays are complete, end to end coverage, commercial free on that tier. There are no “long background stories focused on Americans”, no long post win interviews, no jumping around. Just a full broadcast of each event.
I’ve watched more Biathlon than I have in my life because you just hit “Play” once and zone out for the next couple of hours with beautiful picture quality and athletes giving it their all.
Wouldn’t mind if they raffled off the tickets and had half of the seats given through a free raffle. The other half could be a pay for ticket raffle where the proceeds go to a charity for youth programs to get kids off the streets.
But what about my Kevin Hart 30 min intermission
I shocked that four old guys sucking themselves off for leaving a network (but keeping the show going) in the middle of a game wasn’t a bigger draw, personally.
If it was actually four old guys sucking themselves off it might have been a better viewing experience than what it actually was
A lemon party, a feast for the eyes
Early internet really was something.
Amen brother 🤤
Leave Thompson out of this. He’s not that old
insert gif of barkley double-fisting churros
I’m pretty certain that TNT planned all of the bullshit last year with a 4 quarter game in mind, and then panicked when it turned into a 3 game tournament.
And rather than cancelling the concert or the Mr Beast segments, they decided to just cram Inside the NBA love fest into the middle of the last game rather than before the 3rd and 4th quarter.
Just speaks to how their ability to produce content dynamically and adjust had completely atrophied
Don’t forget Mr Beast
Cannot believe you reminded me of that. Horrible
I don’t know what happened with him… But I still don’t get why he is so famous
You didn’t see all the draft king commercials?
Remembered reading something about how they started measuring viewership differently this year, which is why all sports events are posting record breaking numbers.
NBC is also an on the air channel whereas previously All Star Weekend was on TNT, which required a cable subscription. If you have an Antenna you can watch NBC for free.
The timing of it is perfect if people set up an antenna for the Super Bowl on NBC but were too lazy to remove it right away.
Why would they remove them?
Gotta hit the Amazon return window
An antenna isn’t that expensive. It’s like what, $30 for a good one? Mind as well keep it to watch other stuff and for next year’s Super Bowl.
Shit, my dad made his antenna out of a piece of cardboard. He never misses an opportunity to brag about it.
Yeah well we can’t all be the goat
Street smarts
My wife doesn’t like the cable being visible I shit you not
The Olympics were on before and after coverage of the all star game. Absolutely makes a huge difference as well
Yeah its the same reason cbs shows were always number one despite being drivel. I think boomers just leave the tvs running.
Started including streamers
Getting boosted by the OnlyFans streamers, clearly
Tell me more 🤔
It’s much more accurate. Previously they were using a device to track a group of viewer’s habits and extrapolating that over the population. They expanded that to include non Nielson panel data collected from streaming devices, smart TVs, and secondary subscription services (Amazon, Peacock,Paramount, etc).
They stopped using the decades long out of date method from before, where people would volunteer to have a device on their TV that tracks what they’re viewing.
Well not sure if they’ve stopped, but they’ve expanded their collection methods recently.
I’ve never taken NBA ratings seriously because of it. NBA largely watched by kids, teens, and YAs. None of which are gone be signed up for Nielsen.
Not to mention, a huge amount of the US fanbase is black. And I’ve never been convinced that Nielsen accurately reports on non-white demographics.
I was a Nielsen house for a year or so. This would’ve been around 2022-2023. They send out a random survey with $5 cash and you may get selected from there to do more.
I was sent a pager like device that picked up frequency signals to determine what you were watching or listening to. It was required to be in your pocket the entire day no matter where you went. The more you had it on, the more you earned. Think it was \(50 a month average, sometime much more if they ran some deal where you could earn an extra \)100 for wearing during a certain week for set number of hours. You would also be entered in a larger drawing for thousands each quarter.
It did pick up anything I was watching, anywhere I went. So things like Netflix or Prime would also get picked or radio stations. Was a hassle to remember to grab and they’d text you if it wasn’t moving.
Nielsen isn’t something you “sign up” for. They choose you, based on census data to represent a mini-USA. So they specifically target families with kids and teens. Nielson panels are household based too so they capture everyone living in the house including minors.
NBA largely watched by kids, teens, and YAs
The median age of an NBA viewer is actually 44 years old (up from 40 in 2000). Now if you meant NBA fans instead of viewers I would agree with you but most young NBA fans consumption is simply watching game highlights, players edits on social media and skimming box scores rather than actually watching and attending games.
Again they target however many black families necessary to ensure proportional representation. These families are paid to participate too.
How do they track like people in a bar for example how would they count all those eyes to ever get an accurate number?
Idk how it works for over the air stuff like NBC but I believe for PPV events, bars have to pay based on capacity. So like a UFC match is gonna cost way more for a bar than an individual household. Wouldn’t surprise me if cable or satellite companies priced accordingly for large venues too.
Not necessarily saying this is false but wouldn’t that be pretty hard to regulate on the UFC’s (or ESPN’s) end? And why would the bars agree to that in the first place?
I understand bars can have a general idea on what capacity they’ll hit on an avg. night, but there’s still a ton of variables (weather, performance of nearby competing bars, other events going on in town to name a few) that can cause the attendance to fluctuate. Considering attendance is ultimately how a bar stays in business, it feels unnecessarily risky for them to commit further finances when the crux of this specific model is the same as the bar’s overall model. If you’ve stocked up in anticipation of a big fight Saturday night, and then it pours the day of, and your attendance is half of what you’d thought it’d be, you can still use the inventory for future days. If you expect 100 people to come to fight night, and then only 50 do because it’s raining, you’ve just paid a premium PPV rate for literally no reason and will never be able to get that money back.
Conversely, outside of the Sportsbook bars in Vegas, what’s stopping local bars from lying out of their asses? Even if the bars were lying, what differentiates a lie versus just an incorrect prediction? I live smack in the middle of a big city and have probably watched 7 or 8 fight nights at the same bar, but there’s been times when there’s 50 other people there and times where there’s 200. There are some variables that a bar could use to help with the prediction (time of year, matchups on the specific card being shown), but as I highlighted earlier, there are just too many uncontrollable variables that fluctuate on a day to day basis for these predictions to have any meaningful weight.
And why would the bars agree to that in the first place?
It’s typically bigger places like chains, or places that have the cable setup tied to the business for tax purposes. Kinda outting themselves a bit.
But if we’re talking about a solo owned place, you can probably have it in your personal name, but you can always look for zoning stuff to show it’s a business address.
Guaranteed the cable companies work with them for this shit, higher cost = bigger amount for the cable companies.
https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/2023/10/13/columbus-bars-must-pay-for-license-to-show-osu-purdue-game/71155571007/
it’s like anything illegal with businesses. it will cost you a fuck ton more if you don’t follow the law, and it’s not really worth the risk.
no one wants to lose their bar and their livelihood for that.
Would like to hear more about this
https://www.nielsen.com/news-center/2025/nielsen-begins-updated-era-of-tv-ratings-with-big-data-panel-for-this-falls-tv-season/
but the funniest part is that the NBA press release alone paints a sad story. their lead in was the Olympics which were averaging 26 million viewers in the afternoon window and primetime windows: 2-5 p.m. ET 8-11 p.m. ET. but the NBA All Star game PEAKED at 9.8 million viewers from 7-7:15 p.m. ET for the closing minutes of the USA Stripes’ 48-45 victory over World.
over 15 million people changed the channel during the All Star crap, and as soon as it was over and they came back for olympics. pointless exhibition basketball is tv ratings poison.
pointless exhibition basketball is tv ratings poison.
TBF I don’t think there is a huge overlap for winter olympic sports watchers and random NBA games. Definitely give way less of a shit about an ASG, but I think there’s a huge drop off no matter what.
So they stat padding?
nah just era adjusted
They aren’t going to report less. Just make up whatever the fuck they want.
Do you have a source?
Here
Thanks! These changes combined with NBC being free over the air, make it hard to compare this apples to apples
Board man is a massive draw. Aspirational
Aspirational indeed. I planted a succulent in his honor.
Well done. Here’s 8 million dollars
I planted none but pretended I did. How much money do I get?
believe it or not, 24 million.
I planted 2
Sshh it’s supposed to be an under the table deal.
OTA channel draws more viewers than cable channel.
Color me shocked.
That seems pretty impressive tbh
They changed the way they calculated ratings this year. Ratings are up across the board, but aren’t really comparable to numbers from prior years
I think it being on NBC and Peacock is the biggest difference.
Also having the Olympics on before and after certainly helped. But still, it was a fun ASG, just need to bring it back to two teams tops.
GOD I LOVE TALKING ABOUT RATINGS ON REDDIT
ANOTHER RATINGS THREAD HAS HIT /r/SQUAREDCIRCLE AIEEEEEE
Jayson Tatum never drew a dime
Even though he broke six thousand guitars
I can’t wait to hear what Meltzer thinks about this
As much as people complain about Adam silver’s booking they’re still tuning in
mods save me!!
You should the ratings discussions on Twitter. It’s even worse. They always make it political.
No football, no NHL, 1 NCAAB game. Olympics had cross country skiiing at the time slot.
Yeah, but competing with the Olympics is more competition than normal.
They (NBC) air the Olympics in the US. The live Olympic events happened earlier in the day. They essentially had no competition.
NBA all star game never competes with football dumb dumb
You tried your hardest to spin this into a negative
Daytona 500 was the competition
I think MJ is the only fan of basketball and NASCAR.
/s for the people taking it literally sigh
And l 2012-2025 had football NHL and Olympics to compete against?
Pretty standard competition for the all star game. Maybe a few more nhl games some years
Also moving from cable to network TV.
So NBC networks got 8.8M viewers from NBA All-Star game + millions more from the Olympics on a Sunday night without Sunday Night Football.
Seems like a big win-win situation for NBC all around.
INTERESTING
PLEASE CLAP FOR CAPITALISM
THE DOW IS ABOVE 50,000!
CLAPITALISM FOR THE WIN!!!!!
The NBA wouldn’t exist without capitalism.
Its like a watching a man climb out of his grave
Is it a hot take to conclude that the Olympics lead-in helped boost those numbers, AND USA vs World is a fresh, fun format that should be a regular thing going forward, as the non-USA % of the NBA player pool continues to rise?
I don’t think so. I was going to say that as well (the Olympics part)
Nooooooooo
NGL. Dug the format this year.
Besides the dunk contest it actually felt like the players were invested this year. Dunno if it’s the format or just the new generation, but between the Rising Stars, the 3 pt contest, and the ASG there were a lot of really good players actually trying.
IMO the dunk contest was objectively fine but it suffers the most when stars arent involved. Out of all of the saturday events, its the one that NEEDS big names
I wonder if they should say that every All-Star has to participate in one of the Skills Contest, 3 Pt Contest, or Dunk Contest?
Nice to hear. Format was dope this year. I saw someone say they should do USA vs World every two years during Olympic years and do East vs West the other years and I agree!
Wait no, what? The league is supposed to be falling apart. Everything is a disaster. What the fuck is this???
WHY ARE WE YELLING
No surprise here. The ASG moving away from TNT (cable), to being on NBC (OTA) + getting a great lead-in from the Olympics, meant that this year’s game was guaranteed an increase in viewership.
agreed, still a nice jump, let’s see what happens next year
what, i thought everyone wasn’t aware it was in the afternoon and only tuned at the very end /s
I kinda liked it early… freed up by sunday night for other stuff (AKOTSK ep5)
similar feeling to saturday’s events except that was a snoozefest… which would make it great to have on during a nap
I was working during the game but watched the NBA extended highlights.
That ish ROCKED, I paused it every game for my roomie to come back into the room.
I’ve seen a lot of people snuffing what the product has been without watching this year, but I love an OG vs. Youngin’s, I love an east vs west. I love this as long as people are trying to win
Damn the doomers gotta be in shambles
I did not know it was on telemundo
They working Carmelo Anthony like a dog
But many said ratings would tank since it wasn’t on prime time
Last year’s game was on cable, so just switching to OTA broadcast no matter the time would likely lead to an increase in ratings. Might’ve been even better in prime time. I’m not exactly sweating it though. Next year they’ll get even higher ratings in prime time and they can claim this year-over-year growth lol.
Yeah, it isn’t hidden away on dying cable networks now.
I’m so glad they moved away from TNT/TBS bullshit. Make it available for people to watch and look what happens, people watch.
That’s insane given the fact that the Olympics are on
I’m not going to lie, I turned on NBC expecting coverage for the Olympics. But it was the best all star game in a while.
BELIEVE THAT
Might be just me, but the ball hitting the rim in this event soundy clunky and boomy. Am I making sense? It’s as if they mic’d up the rim.
There’s a camera at the rim for officials. Probably has a mic
Lmao I spent all weekend reading post after post about how the NBA is dead and has no viewership
Apologize to my andromedan king
What counts as a viewer? I.e if I go on the channel is watch for 5 mins before I turn to another is that enough?
For those 5 minutes, yes. That’s why it says they averaged 8.8 million, peak views were 9.8 million
No. Nielsen has a view time requirement in order for it to count as “watched.” It’s usually a lot higher than 5 mins
I mean most people think the change was a success right? Yeah the last game sucked because it wasn’t close but every game before that was infinitely more interesting than previous years
It can be even better next season with some tweaks:
-> Add prize money to dunk content (or shelve it a few seasons)
-> Add prize money to the all-star game for winners
-> Play rising stars and all-star game qualifiers saturday, final match-ups & 3pt contest sunday
-> Bring in higher level celebs and influencers for the celeb game
90% of the way there…
Make the MVP defensive award with a $1M prize. Watch these dudes go to work
I still kinda think the championship game for the NBA cup should be over all star weekend
NBA is in a good place. Silver is doing fine considering the amount of bullshit he gets.
Surprising with how many people didn’t realize how early all star Saturday started. Saw so many comments about missing the 3 point contest
Weren’t most recent ASG’s on cable? Like espn and tnt?
Why are they yelling?
Hasn’t the All Star game been on TNT for many years?
And NBC is showing the Winter Olympics?
TNT doesn’t have the contract anymore
I actually thought the all star game was good this year. Dunk contest sucked though
People praising how there weren’t many interruptions like some singing or shit and I feel like that only happened because they had a tight schedule due to the olympics. Without olympics I would fully expect them to have some concert and other boring fillers because that means more ads.
Ngl, I was watching Olympics coverage but looking at this sub and I tuned in when I saw the reaction to Ant and Wemby actually trying in game 1.
I would have never tuned in if it was much of the same as years past.
I enjoyed it
People will watch when it is available and easy to access. Say it isn’t so?! I hope more teams go the way of the Suns and utilize local stations.
I’m keeping peacock forever.
It has all of the sports including Olympics
My favorite trashy reality shows
Basketball
I mean in general, NBC is by far the best provider of sports. I feel like anytime I watch any game that NBC is in charge of, it’s just leagues ahead of everyone else. Football, soccer, Olympics etc
I have to say, the earlier start (and it being on the channel with the Olympics) helped and i felt like I could enjoy it with my family. Last year I felt like the game started at 9pm cst
I enjoyed the engagement and effort of the players much more than recent years.
Let’s be real. I only saw it because I have peacock this month for the Olympics.
I don’t have ESPN. I have Peacock. 🤷🏻♂️
honestly for some reason I ponied up for a Disney+ subscription for a month (im in Australia) just so I can watch the ASG (not All Star Saturday thank fuck), and I wasn’t disappointed
stop yelling at me
They only reason I watched some of the All-Star game this year was because I already had NBC on the TV from watching the Olympics. I’m guessing that was a big part of the increase in views.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who got automatically switched to the NBA broadcast after Olympics coverage ended
They take commercials out of their replays. Beat thing ever
It’s not surprising, really.
Broadcast television has higher reach than Cable, and the discrepancy has only multiplied post-pandemic.
Pair that with the change in Nielsen’s measurement methodology, and voila.
Is this what it’s like when the network and announcers actually enjoy the sport they’re covering
I think it was almost perfect however the 5 point overtime and the 3 point round robin is kind of stupid and I’m sure they can figure out a better way to do it. IMO it should be a five minute overtime THEN a 5 point 2nd overtime if it comes to it. Also, figure out a way to format it better because stripes played a hard 12 minutes then right away they had to play a well rested stars team? They were clearly gassed. It was an awful last game after three amazing ones.
cap
I’m happy.for them..I have no idea who won
Nice and kid friendly 5pm start time will get better ratings. Should be like this from now on
NBA is just a social justice league. Ratings are down!!!
Loved the All Star game show. Entertaining and a great look at individual players and how they work in a team. Congrats to Anthony Edwards and Kawhi Leonard. Awesome! Bring it back next year.
Great Olympic coverage by NBC. Never cave in to ESPN or streaming. Millions of fans would be unable to watch.
How much of this was because it was on a broadcast network in the middle of the day instead of a cable network at 9pm EST?
There is no way this is an apples to apples comparison. I would bet my last dollar that the only reason it was the most viewed is because they broadcasted it to A LOT more homes than they did in the past. Telemundo has massive reach, so I’m guessing that’s the culprit.
The entire ASG Weekend used to be a massive event and everybody (even non basketball fans) turned into the entire thing or went there. There is no way in hell that we’re not missing context here.
I am surprised.
Kinda insane how literally just putting the games on NBA helped so much with viewership. Make the games easy to watch and people watch them. Who would have thought.
Man i was in LA and I chose to go see Book of Mormon instead of the game. There were more people watching that show then there were people at the all star game 😅 this was for Saturday btw
Telemundo? Right on!