Jalen Brunson’s status as one of the greatest small guards in NBA history crystallized. A New York Knicks franchise starved of eternal glory exorcised its demons, finally basking in the cathartic elation that accompanies a league championship.
The Knicks wrote the final chapter of a storybook season that included a 13-game playoff win streak, part of which came at the expense of San Antonio Spurs wunderkind Victor Wembanyama. The otherworldly Frenchman’s talent was on display during an NBA Finals that, despite lasting only five games, proved cinematic.
The series finished as the most-watched NBA Finals since Michael Jordan capped his “Last Dance” with the Chicago Bulls in 1998, according to ESPN PR.
This year’s Finals averaged 20.6 million viewers, a 100% increase in viewership from last year’s championship series, which saw the Oklahoma City Thunder outlast the Indiana Pacers in seven games, per ESPN. For reference, as reported by Sports Media Watch, Jordan’s Bulls defeating the Utah Jazz in six games in ’98 drew an average of a whopping 29.04 million viewers. That year, of course, Jordan collected his sixth ring, cementing his case as the NBA’s GOAT.
While this iteration of Knicks-Spurs is firmly behind that fabled Bulls series, at least in terms of ratings, it did surpass the 2017 NBA Finals in that category. A series that featured a rematch of LeBron James’ Cleveland Cavaliers against a dynastic Golden State Warriors squad averaged 20.41 million viewers, per Sports Media Watch, the year after the Cavs completed their unprecedented 3-1 comeback.
The 2026 NBA Finals set an ABC and ESPN audience record, according to ESPN, which cited Nielsen. It’s important to note that Nielsen shifted to a new methodology last fall that couples its traditional panel with “Big Data” from smart TVs and set-top boxes. Plus, Nielsen didn’t begin factoring in out-of-home viewing in its estimates until 2020 and started doing so in 100% of markets only a year ago, according to Sports Media Watch.
Nevertheless, the numbers this year’s Finals did are still undoubtedly monumental.
Game 3 stood out. It’s the only contest the Spurs won in the series. They stole the game on the road at Madison Square Garden. The esteemed arena was hosting its first Finals game since 1999. Donald Trump was in the house, making him the first sitting U.S. president to attend an NBA Finals game. The showdown pulled in an average of 23.8 million viewers, the largest NBA Finals Game 3 audience since 1998, according to ESPN.
This year’s version of Knicks-Spurs also secured the largest NBA Finals Game 5 audience since 1998, per ESPN. In New York’s closeout game at San Antonio’s Frost Bank Center, Brunson — like Jordan in Game 6 of the ’98 Finals — erupted for 45 points. While earning NBA Finals MVP honors, he lifted the Knicks to their first NBA title since 1973. His performance headlined an outing that averaged 24.5 million viewers, peaked with 33 million viewers and put a bow on one of the more spectacular playoff runs in both league and sports history.
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