NBA Opening Week Ratings Rise Amid Mass Injury Concerns
The NBA’s viewership numbers continue to show strong momentum under its latest TV deal.
The NBA announced that its nine national TV games during NBA opening week (Tuesday, Oct. 20 to Friday, Oct. 23) averaged 3.24 million viewers on NBC, Peacock, ABC, ESPN, and Amazon’s Prime Video. That’s up 15% compared to last year, and was the most-watched opening week since 2012. Viewership is based on Nielsen’s Big Data + Panel measurements, while NBC and Peacock’s also include Adobe Analytics data.
The numbers come after a 2025–26 season when NBA viewership increased by 16% compared to the previous year, when its declining viewership was a hot topic. The league added NBC and Amazon as league media partners last season, while it ended its agreement with Warner Bros. Discovery, dropping TNT broadcasts.
This year’s opening week viewership was carried by the 5.9 million average viewers who watched the league’s opening night games Tuesday, when an average of 7.71 million viewers tuned in for the Knicks–Sixers game at 7 p.m. ET on NBC and Peacock, the league’s most-watched primetime opening night game ever.
The league also had a rare 3 p.m. opening day tip-off between the Celtics and Pistons that averaged 2.5 million viewers on NBC and Peacock, a new addition to this year’s Opening Week national TV programming.
While the matinee game only delivered a fraction of primetime viewership, media expert and former longtime ESPN exec John Kosner told FOS that more sports may explore placing regular-season games in the middle of the day.
“That’s time on the calendar that’s fairly fallow right now,” Kosner said.
ESPN delivered an average of 2.3 million viewers across four opening week games, headlined by the 2.5 million who watched the Sixers and Cavaliers on Thursday. Prime Video averaged 2.14 million viewers for its doubleheader Friday, up 83% from last year’s opening game.
While average viewership is often the standard ratings measurement, the NBA has also continued to promote its volume of unique viewership in recent years. The league said it drew 49 million viewers to its games across the different networks, up 33% compared to last year.
Injury Bug
Despite the successful start in the ratings, the start of the NBA season has been dampened by significant injuries to many of its stars during its first week.
Timberwolves star Anthony Edwards, who started off the season with a 45-point performance against the Heat on ESPN, will have an arthroscopic procedure on his right knee and will miss up to two months.
Thunder star Jalen Williams sustained a dislocated ankle and broken fibula Sunday, which GM Sam Presti said will likely keep him out for the rest of the season. In the same game, his teammate Cason Wallace tore a shoulder muscle that will also keep him out for most of the season.
Tyrese Haliburton, who missed the entire 2025–26 season due to an Achilles tear he sustained during Game 7 of the 2025 NBA Finals, is expected to miss at least two weeks with a hamstring strain. The injury caused him to miss Wednesday’s Pacers game against the Sixers, which would have been his first national TV game back since the 2025 Finals.
Other stars—which the NBA defines as players who made an All-Star team in the last three seasons—that have injuries that will keep them out for at least a few weeks are Paolo Banchero, Kawhi Leonard, and Jaren Jackson Jr.
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