• by Wayne Friedman , April 18, 2024

NBA 2023-2024 regular-season advertising revenues on its national TV networks was virtually the same as a year ago on its four TV networks --  $670.5 million versus $671.0 million, according to EDO Ad EnGage.

The league will commence its highly viewed playoff season of games this weekend.

This trend follows average regular-game viewership on those networks (ABC, ESPN, TNT, and NBA TV) which amounted to 1.09 million Nielsen-measured viewing versus 1.08 million the year before, according to a report in Sports Media Watch.

Leaving out NBA TV, the three big networks (ABC, ESPN, and TNT) averaged 1.56 million down 1% from 1.59 million viewers a year ago.

One of the major changes during the season came on Christmas Day -- a significant day for NBA viewing -- due to sports competition from an NFL tripleheader of games,  which averaged a massive 28.7 million viewers.

NBA viewership dipped 30% to 2.9 million viewers on that day. 

This year's other advertising metrics also came in mostly even to a year ago: Total impressions were at 32.4 billion (34.1 billion the year before), with airings at 37,800 (versus 37,000 in 2022-2023).

The biggest spenders so far this year include Google Pixel, Kia Motors, State Farm, Hyundai, CarMax, AT&T Wireless, Toyota, Honda, Burger King, and McDonalds.