NBA Season Openers Bring In TV Viewers On Christmas Day

The NBA front office banked on the fact that basketball fans would be willing to tune in on Christmas day for delayed season openers following the NBA lockout and it turns out they made the right decision.

The league scored a Sunday average of 6.2 million viewers, besting last years 6 million viewers.

According to Nielsen Ratings the Bulls-Lakers game was the third most-watched regular-season game ever on ABC, falling just behind last years Heat-Lakers match and the Miami-L.A matchup in 2004.

Also scoring well was the Chris Paul led Clippers match against the Warriors which ended with a 2.2 rating, up by 69 percent from last years Portland-Golden State telecast which played in the same time slot.

The first game of the day between the Celtics-Knicks on TNT also scored well with 4.0 rating, up 48 percent from last years Bulls-Knicks game.

Also up by 29 percent from last season’s Denver-Oklahoma City matchup was ESPN’s Magic-Thunder game which drew a 1.8 rating.

Even mid-afternoon games were on a hot stream with ABC reporting a 4.9 share for the Mavericks-Heat game, up 7 percent from the same Boston-Orlando timeslot last year.

The over-night ratings system measures the countries largest markets, likely areas for NBA game watching activity.

Did you tune in to watch your favorite NBA team open their season on Christmas Day?

[Image via Eric Broder Van Dyke / Shutterstock.com]