• by Wayne Friedman , Yesterday

An intense, closely fought NBA Finals between the New York Knicks and San Antonio Spurs has rocketed to high viewing results for Game 3 of the series with a Nielsen-measured 23.8 million average viewers on ABC/ESPN.

The third game of the series is the strongest result for Game 3 of the NBA Finals since 1998.

The audience for Game 3 peaked at 26.3 million in the closing minutes of the game, which the Spurs won with a score of 115-111 over the New York Knicks. This peak audience number is up 159% versus Game 3 a year ago.

Game 3 is also the highest-rated TV program since the Super Bowl LX in February. Heading into Game 4, the Knicks have won two games to one over the Spurs.

NBC Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum said on CNBC that the audience peaked at 20 million viewers, the highest number since 2018. Tatum also said the game had over one billion views on social media and was the highest search topic globally, according to Google.

The Knicks last won the NBA Finals in 1973, and the Spurs last won in 2014 -- beating the Miami Heat 4 games to one.

National TV advertising for the NBA Finals for Disney platforms including ABC and ESPN Deportes totaled $82.2 million over the first three games -- this from 1,342 airings for 4.1 billion impressions, according to estimates from iSpot.tv.

A year ago, national TV advertising was $85.6 billion, from 1,049 airings resulting in 2.7 billion impressions.

Game 1 of the series pulled in 16.9 million viewers, while Game 2 had 16.3 million. The average for the first three games is 19.0 million viewers.