5.6 million NBC viewers, a 10-year record

The Oklahoma City Thunder and Golden State Warriors weren’t the only winners of this year’s NBA tipoff. NBC and Peacock broadcast their first NBA games since 2002, earning a large audience of an average of 5.6 million viewers Tuesday night for the broadcast of both games.

That number, based on linear measurements from Nielsen and digital data from Adobe Analytics, is not only an 87% improvement over last year’s NBA tipoff, which hit 3 million viewers on TNT, but the largest audience the doubleheader has seen in more than a decade. No season opener has reached these heights since 2012 – or 2010 if you exclude 2011’s unusual Christmas tip. And considering the 2010 games included LeBron James’ debut with the Miami Heat, it’s impressive that NBC’s broadcast came so close to that record.

The total of 5.6 million represents the average number of people watching the broadcast at any given time. When broken down into shorter segments, Tuesday’s doubleheader peaked at 7.1 million viewers between 10:45 and 11 p.m. ET, with the Thunder beating the Houston Rockets by one point in double overtime. With an average of 5.9 million total viewers, the Thunder-Rockets game’s viewership was certainly also boosted by the fact that it was Kevin Durant’s debut as a Houston player and marked a showdown with the team he started his career with. The Warriors-Lakers game averaged 5.1 million total viewers.

Additionally, NBC Sports achieved its largest non-NFL and non-Olympics simulstream audience ever, with an average minute audience of 1 million viewers from a combination of Peacock and NBC Sports Digital.