Bring together the long-suffering fans of the biggest media market in the NBA — with a team that was hard not to root for — against a player unlike any other and a rising dominant force, and you had ratings gold.
This year’s NBA Finals between Jalen Brunson’s New York Knicks and Victor Wembanyama’s San Antonio Spurs drew the largest audience to watch the NBA Finals since Michael Jordan was still with the Bulls, 28 years ago. The Finals averaged 20.6 million viewers across ABC and ESPN, but beyond the record viewership, there was also record social media engagement and merchandise sales. Some of the highlights include:
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• Game 5, when the Knicks closed out the series, averaged 24.5 million viewers and peaked at 33 million viewers at 11:15 p.m. ET. That makes it the most-watched NBA Finals Game 5 since 1998, and the most-watched NBA game since Game 7 of the 2016 NBA Finals (when LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers completed their comeback from 3-1 down on the Golden State Warriors).
• The NBA Finals delivered the highest share for a Finals on record (38.3).
• It wasn’t just the Finals, this most-watched postseason in 28 years across ABC/ESPN, Amazon Prime Video and NBC/Peacock.
• The NBA Finals generated a record 15 billion views and counting on social media, the most ever for an NBA Finals and nearly triple the previous record set in 2025.
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• In the first 24 hours following their clinching win in Game 5, the Knicks set an all-time Fanatics merchandise record for any championship team ever across all sports.
• The 2026 NBA Finals set a new league record for merchandise sales across NBAStore.com, Fanatics, team stores and third-party retail.
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