Thursday night's matchup between LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers and Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks was the highest-rated game during the 2019-20 NBA season since opening night, according to Turner Sports.
The contest, which featured dueling teams with fewer than five losses through 28 games of the season, resulted in a narrow home win for Giannis and his Bucks over the visiting Lakers.
Antetokounmpo scored 34 points while James finished with a triple-double in the nationally televised bout. Turner Sports says the TNT broadcast averaged 2.8 million viewers while the “Lakers vs. Bucks telecast [was] up 150% over the comparable game last year.”
That game may have been a preview of the 2020 NBA Finals, as both teams sit at the top of their respective conference's standings. Last year, Antetokounmpo and the Bucks fell short to the eventual-champion Toronto Raptors, losing in six games in the Eastern Conference Finals after going up 2-0.
Los Angeles, on the other hand, failed to even reach the postseason in James' first season in Hollywood.
The 2019-20 NBA season has seen an overall decline in ratings, which has threatened to shake up the format of the 82-game season. In fact, a recent proposal to include an in-season tournament — similar to overseas soccer competitions in various leagues — was recently suggested.
In recent years there have been proposals to decrease the length of the regular season, but one solution, in the league's eyes, would be to offer an additional mid-season competition to replace fatigue.
Of course, a partial reason ratings are down is certainly a lack of parity, epitomized by the highly rated Thursday matchup between the Lakers and Bucks. It was seen by many fans because of the competitive standing of the two teams, but not every nationally televised game can boast this kind of must-watch tilt.
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