The NBA all-star weekend was by all accounts a huge success for the association, but league executives will not be happy to hear about how their showcase event was dominated in television rating by the Saturday Night Live 40 year reunion. The special which aired on NBC at 8pm, same time as the tip-off for the all0star game, garnered a 14.2 household rating compared to only 5.5 rating for the ASG. The NBA can only be but so mad, considering that viewership was reportedly up 12% on TNT from last year’s ASG.
This year’s NBA All-Star Game overnights still beat out the metered ratings for seven of the previous 10 games.
It was a closer battle on Twitter, where 1.3 million tweets were sent out about the SNL special versus 1.1 million on the NBA All-Star Game, according to Nielsen Social.
The SNL show counts as NBC’s most watched prime-time entertainment telecast, in total viewers, since May 13, 2004. That night “ER” had 23.9 million viewers on the night of the “Frasier” finale. That number excludes post-Super Bowl programs.
The NBA has kind of figured out how to mxamize the entertainment value of their ASG. This year’s contest was the highest scoring game in the leagues history, with the West team defeating the East team 163-158. The style of play has picked up in the game, and despite NBA commentator Charles Barkley’s dismay, the advanced metrics seem to be playing a factor in the ASG. The number of 3 point attempts in the game has grown exponentially over the last 5 ASG games and can almost directly be attributed to the analytics determing how much more valuable 3’s are than mid-range or long-2 point FG’s.
NBA All-Star Game: 60 combined threes in 2011, 66 in 2012, 71 in 2013, 100 in 2014, 113 with less than 9 mins to go in 2015.
— Bill Simmons (@BillSimmons) February 16, 2015