ABC’s broadcast of Sunday’s deciding game in the NBA Finals was the network’s highest-rated Game 6 ever and the highest overall in 11 years, Deadline.com reported.
The game generated a 15.0 overnight household rating, topping last year’s Game 6 between the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics by 22%. Sunday’s game clinched the first NBA championship for the Dallas Mavericks, who dispatched the favored Miami Heat, 105-95, to win the series four games to two.
In preliminary overnight numbers from TVbytheNumbers.com, the NBA game scored an 8.6 average rating in adults 18-49 for the prime-time portion, up 59% from last year.
The only ratings competition on the major broadcast channels was provided by CBS’s “65th Annual Tony Awards,” with Fox and NBC putting up almost all repeat programming. But the Tonys were no match for the NBA, with the awards telecast managing only a 1.2 average rating in 18-49. Still, that was up 9% from last year’s 1.1.
First, Mavs really did great job on winning it all in game 6. They really uses their experience as some of the players were already been more than a decade playing in NBA. And congrats to the team’s success as they became the 2011 NBA champs.