The Lakers-Warriors Christmas thriller draws the largest crowd for an NBA regular season game in five years

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According to Nielsen, Wednesday night’s thriller between the Los Angeles Lakers and Golden State Warriors drew 7,763,000 viewers in prime time on ABC. It was the most-watched NBA regular-season game in five years and a 499 percent increase over the comparable game last year (Philadelphia vs. Miami).

The 2024 Lakers-Warriors game peaked at 10:30 p.m. ET with 8.324 million viewers.

Given last year’s poor Christmas Day viewership – the five-game 2023 NBA Christmas schedule averaged just 2.85 million viewers on ABC/ESPN against NFL competition – this year’s NBA Christmas schedule had to be compared to last increase every year. But what really boosted viewership this year were the larger programming windows on ABC, compelling games and no NFL game in prime time. According to Sports Media Watch, 2024 marked only the second year that all five Christmas games were broadcast on ABC.

All of these factors resulted in Wednesday’s NBA Christmas games being watched by an average of 5.25 million viewers across ABC, ESPN, Disney+ and ESPN+. It’s the most-watched NBA holiday season in five years, according to Nielsen, and NBA viewership across all ESPN platforms is up four percent over last season at the time of writing.

As for the viewership of the other Christmas games:

• The noon game between the San Antonio Spurs and the New York Knicks was watched by an average of 4.913 million viewers. which was the most-watched Christmas opening game in 13 years, according to Nielsen data.
• The game between the Minnesota Timberwolves and Dallas Mavericks averaged 4.382 million viewers, while the game between the Phoenix Suns and Denver Nuggets averaged 3.84 million viewers in the late window.
• The Philadelphia 76ers’ victory over the Boston Celtics was watched by an average of 5.161 million viewers.

Final viewership for the Sixers-Celtics game and the entire day will increase as viewership in the Boston market is still incomplete, according to Nielsen.

All in all, a very good day for the NBA.

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(Photo: Noah Graham / NBAE via Getty Images)