• by Wayne Friedman , June 13, 2023

The 2023 NBA finals, in which the Denver Nuggets won their first NBA title ever over the Miami Heat, posted a Nielsen-measured average 11.5 million viewers over five games -- down 6% from a year ago.

Last year's NBA Finals, in which the Golden State Warriors beat the Boston Celtics in six games, averaged 12.3 million viewers.

This year’s finals pulled in $112.3 million in national TV advertising, according to EDO Ad EnGage estimates. Some 421 airings of commercials ran on the ABC Television Network, yielding a total of 4.7 billion impressions.

Universal Pictures and Sony Pictures top all TV advertisers with 19 commercial airings apiece -- Universal's ”Oppenheimer” and Sony’s “Gran Turismo.” Those two companies gathered the highest level of total impressions over the five games, at just over 205 million apiece.

Using this big sports platform, Walt Disney ran 14 promo spots for a range of businesses including Hulu, FX, and theatrical movies “Elemental” and “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.” State Farm had 16 commercial airings.

Automotive was also active -- Kia had 13 airings and Toyota had 12.

For the 2022 NBA Finals, the six games took in $148.5 million, with 408 commercial TV airings getting a total of 5.1 billion impressions.