LeBron James’ heavily-hyped return to Cleveland, with the player now sporting a Miami Heat jersey, propelled TNT’s Thursday NBA game to big ratings, although the blowout nature of the contest assured no television records would be set.
According to SMW, Thursday’s Miami Heat-Cleveland Cavaliers game scored a 5.0 overnight rating, a figure that more than triples the househould audience for the same-week game in 2009.
Yet the figure was not enough to outpace the 5.6 rating for this season’s opening game, which saw the revamped Miami Heat lineup take on the Boston Celtics.
Viewership for Thursday’s game peaked early with a 6.7 for the 8:15-8:30PM quarter hour. While that proves the available audience would have been large enough to top the Heat-Celtics rating had the game been more competitive and alluring throughout, by 8:30PM, the point differential had not yet reached a threshold at which viewers could be sure the contest would be a blowout. The tune-out beginning at 8:30PM, therefore, cannot wholly be explaiend by the fact that the Miami Heat dominated the Cleveland Cavaliers Thursday.
More likely, a portion of the audience was primarily interested in the initial reaction to LeBron’s return to his former domain; once everything began to settle, they pursued other options, such as the NFL game between the Eagles and Texans (4.1 overnight rating).
SMW’s data reveals the game was of far greater interest to Cleveland; the broadcast averaged a 25.4 rating in the Cleveland-Akron market, as compared with the 14.9 for Miami-Fort Lauderdale.