In what will be a victory for the early risers, East Coast viewers and washed parents everywhere, the NBA is moving the start of weeknight finals games up by a half-hour this year. Game 1 of the 2023 NBA Finals is scheduled for 8:30 p.m. ET on Thursday, June 1.
It’s a significant move up from last year and recent league history, when finals games began at 9:07 p.m. (expect games to start at roughly 8:35 p.m. ET this June). The decision to move games up came last July out of talks between NBA executives and their counterparts at ESPN and ABC, where the NBA Finals will air.
“We want to do whatever we can to maximize viewership across the board,” said Matt Kenny, ESPN’s vice president of programming. “And there are some years teams coming from the Pacific Time Zone, and other years other time zones, and regardless we want to do whatever we can to showcase the NBA in the best way possible, to expose the league to as many fans as possible and certainly for the NBA Finals. We’re just really excited about the 8:30 start time.”
The earlier start times were a reflection of the league and ESPN trying to balance the needs of fans in the different time zones, the in-arena experience for the games themselves and the entire national audience. Although the NBA has not had any particular drop-off in viewership late into its games if the games are close, and ratings even tend to peak later in games, Gregg Winik, the league’s president of content and executive producer, said the total households in use across the country drops after 11 p.m. ET.
“We circled 8:30 p.m. Eastern Time for the telecast schedule on weeknights as the ultimate game time,” Winik said. “But realizing it’s not most convenient for the hometown fans in the participating markets. So on the edges, we could have a 5:30 Pacific Time local start or a 8:30; none of those are perfect. We still have obviously participating teams in every time zone. So we’re trying to middle this and sort of make it sort of the best possible scenario for all.”
The new start time could cause some issues for fans on the West Coast, where games will now begin at 5:30 p.m. instead of six but it is a tradeoff the league and its television partner are willing to make. While three of the teams currently remaining in the Western Conference are operating on Pacific Daylight Time (PDT), and 14 of the last 22 finals have had a team from that time zone, it reflects the reality of TV programming. The majority of potential viewers don’t live out West.
The Eastern Time Zone has represented an average of 43 percent of the viewers age two and older across the last three NBA Finals held in June or July (so not including the 2020 finals) and 45 percent of the audience aged 18-49, according to data supplied by ESPN. In 2019 and 2022, despite the presence of the Golden State Warriors in the finals, the size of the audience in the east was roughly twice as big as the one in PST for both demographics. Winik said that upwards of 60 percent of America’s households are in the Eastern or Central time zones.
While an earlier start time should help the NBA and ABC maximize its audience in the east, Winik believes it won’t hurt the game experience for any games that may be held out west, if a team from that time zone gets to the finals.
“Our view during the finals, the local fans have adjusted to the start times whether it be early or late and we don’t think it will have any impact on sort of getting people in the building or affecting their experience,” Winik said.
The time change could help ratings continue to rebound for the NBA. After reaching a nadir in 2020 during its bubble postseason, finals TV ratings have slowly trickled back up. Roughly 12.4 million viewers, on average, watched last year’s finals games, up 22 percent from the year before, but still down by 2.7 million from 2019.
Ratings have been booming for the league this postseason, hitting thresholds not seen since before cord-cutting hit the media industry and the overall audience size began to decrease. Game 1 of Los Angeles Lakers-Golden State Warriors series was the most watched second-round Game 1 in cable TV history, according to Warner Bros. Discovery, TNT’s parent company. The Warriors and Sacramento Kings regularly posted big numbers, as did other series.
Winik said the new start time is meant to stand for the long term after a long history of late tips. He remembers NBA Finals games on NBC in the 1990s starting at 9:20 p.m., he said, but after receiving feedback from fans, even friends, who asked why games were starting so late, the NBA is lettings thing begin a little earlier.
(Photo: Garrett Ellwood / NBAE via Getty Images)