The NBA has been at the center of debates in recent years regarding the state of the league and its popularity. But according to the new television numbers, the NBA is doing just fine.
The league revealed on Wednesday that 170 million people across the country watched the regular season on ABC/ESPN, Amazon Prime Video, NBC/Peacock or NBA TV.
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That mark is an 86% increase from last season and is the highest in 24 years.
This regular season was the first under the NBA’s new TV rights deal and it was a major success.
228 billion total views on social media is a new NBA record and is a 13% increase from last season.
Even the All-Star Game, which has come under scrutiny in recent years, drew in 8.8 million average viewers. That’s the highest viewership for the All-Star game since 2011.
These impressive numbers highlight a wide-open season in which a number of teams looked like contenders.
The postseason started off with a bang on Tuesday, another good sign that the NBA is still growing.
James Parker contributed to this story.
