NBA regular‑season viewers surge

The National Basketball Association says 170 million people in the United States watched regular-season games this season, its biggest reach in 24 years. (nba.com) The league released the figure on April 15, 2026, covering games on ABC and ESPN, Amazon Prime Video, NBC and Peacock, and NBA TV in the first season of its new media package. (nba.com) The NBA said that total was up 86% from the 2024-25 season. It also said average viewership across those four outlets rose 35% to its highest level in 13 years. (espn.com) The jump came in Year 1 of the league’s 11-year media agreements with The Walt Disney Company, NBCUniversal, and Amazon Prime Video, which began with the 2025-26 season and run through 2035-36. The league said those deals put more national games on broadcast television and broadly distributed streaming services. (nba.com) NBC returned to National Basketball Association coverage for the first time in more than 20 years, and Amazon carried league games for the first time under the new package. The league’s regular-season audience was spread across four primary platforms instead of the previous setup centered on ABC, ESPN, TNT, and NBA TV. (espn.com) The league also reported 57 telecasts that averaged at least 2 million viewers, the most since the 2011-12 season. Total watch time topped 920 million hours, up 25% from last season, according to the NBA. (nba.com) The audience gains arrived as the postseason opened this week. The SoFi National Basketball Association Play-In Tournament began on April 14, and the 2026 National Basketball Association playoffs are scheduled to start on April 18. (nba.com) The numbers are the league’s case that a wider mix of broadcast and streaming outlets can still grow the regular-season audience. The next test starts Saturday, when playoff games move from reach to retention. (nbcsports.com)