Anthony Davis No. 3 of the Los Angeles Lakers took the ball against the Miami Heat during one of the NBA Finals on September 30, 2020 at Land Rlando, Florida at Adventhealth Arena.
Fernando Medina | National Basketball Association | Getty Images
The National Basketball Association played an average of 7.4 million viewers in 1 of its finals on its FBC, its lowest audience for the final since 1994.
The total number of viewers has been reported by the Hollywood Reporter. Requests to the NBA and ESPN, which produced the game for ABC, to confirm the total amount of viewers.
The Disney-owed network usually publishes the number of its viewers on its website, but on Thursday it therefore failed.
The Los Angeles Lakers, led by forward Anthony Davis, beat the Miami Heat 116-98, scoring 34 game-level points. Lakers star LeBron James is playing one of his former teams in the Heat in the NBA Championship match.
James helped the Heat reach four straight finals from 2010 to 2014.
The 2020 NBA Final Opener was the lowest rated Game 1 since 2007 when the San Antonio Spurs played the James-led Cleveland Cavaliers. It was also the NBA’s least-watched final since the 1994 Houston Rockets vs. New York Knicks series Game 5.
The game, then on NBC, was interrupted by an OJ Simpson car chase. According to Nielsen Ratings, the competition is ranked 7.8.
1 game in the final between the Golden State Warriors and the Toronto Raptors last year attracted 13.3 million viewers. The NBA set a spectator hip height in Canada for the game in 2019, reaching approximately 7.4 million spectators. But that number is higher than in the U.S. Not counted as viewership.
The NBA will continue its bubble finals on Friday with Game 2 set to begin at 9 p.m.
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