The NFL has been the most dominant sport in America amassing millions of views on average. On special occasions such as Christmas and Thanksgiving, the league witnessed a surge in viewership trumping the numbers of other sports such as basketball.
Apart from the NFL, the assumption would be that the NBA reigns supreme over other sporting events. But that is not the case. The Rose Bowl game between Oregon and Ohio State averaged 21.1 million views making it the biggest sporting event apart from the NFL this year.
The Rose Bowl game trumped the average viewership achieved by the 2024 College Football championship game between Michigan and Washington. The game had an average of 17.1 million viewers. Comparing these numbers to that of the NBA, which is averaging under 2 million views per game through the first 18 games of the regular season, it is not a good look for the basketball league.
The Rose Bowl averaged 21.1 million viewers on ESPN, making it the most-watched non-NFL sporting event since last year’s national championship.@PatMcAfeeShow‘s AltCast also had 2.4 million viewers — ESPN’s most-watched AltCast ever (for any sport).
Those are huge numbers. pic.twitter.com/wFIwcbCSlR
— Joe Pompliano (@JoePompliano) January 4, 2025
Pat McAfee’s AltCast secured 2.4 million views competing against the NBA’s regular season ratings
This year, the Rose Bowl battle between Oregon and Ohio State recorded a higher viewership than the 2024 NBA Finals which had 11.31 million viewers on average. This makes it clear that basketball is not the king of ratings even if football is removed from the equation. The Pat McAfee Show‘s AltCast secured 2.4 million views making it the most-watched AltCast show ever which is more than the average NBA game’s ratings.
Will Howard (Image via Open Source/NBC)The NBA managed to secure media rights of $77 billion but the drop in viewership comes as a big setback to the league. The biggest criticism of the sport has been a lack of competitiveness and the absence of ‘roughness’ in the game. With referees issuing technical fouls for the most minor of gestures and altercations, fans are losing interest in watching basketball.
The league witnessed its highest ratings on Christmas Day of 2024. It was truly a miracle as each of the five matchups slated on that day amassed at least 5.20 million views. LeBron James confidently made the statement that “Christmas is our day” except for the fact that the NFL wound up getting twice as many views. The NFL on Netflix special recorded 65 million views as per Nielsen becoming the most-streamed NFL game ever.
Caitlin Clark recently shared her two cents on why the NBA’s ratings are tanking and she hit the hammer on the nail with her take.
The physicality of the league has changed a lot…and maybe people want more beef and physicality and people think it’s gotten soft. But I think that’s also because the skill has just changed.
Caitlin Clark said on New Heights
Caitlin Clark on the NBA viewership‼️‼️#FeverRising #WNBA pic.twitter.com/NqqJtmyNnD
— Krysta (@Krysta____) January 2, 2025
She then attributed the dominance of football as a key factor in the viewership decline as well. The NBA will need to figure out how to generate more buzz and bring back interest in basketball as the competition surrounding the game will continue to get stronger.
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