Wild Knicks-Pacers Game 1 was huge ratings boon not seen in seven years

Drama between the Knicks and Pacers turned into ratings gold for TNT, which aired the opening game of the Eastern Conference finals on Wednesday night. 

The Pacers’ comeback win, which broke Knicks fans’ hearts and delighted their Indiana counterparts, averaged 6.6 million viewers and peaked at 8.5 million at 11 p.m., the network announced less than 24  hours after the “instant classic.” 

The viewership for the game was the most-watched Eastern Conference finals Game 1 in seven years, since the Cavaliers with LeBron James faced the Celtics in 2018 on ABC to an average audience of 7.24 million viewers. 

The Knicks-Pacers series has seen a 2 percent increase in viewership over last year’s Pacers-Celtics series, which aired on ESPN and ESPN 2 and averaged 6.4 million viewers, Sports Media Watch reported.

The spike in viewers during Wednesday’s game naturally occurred right around the time of the game’s exciting OT finish. 

The NBA is likely happy to see the Pacers and Knicks meeting in the conference finals after the two ran into each other in the playoffs last season, reigniting a classic rivalry that was at its height in the 1990s. 

The series between the rivals also marks the final NBA playoff set — or games for that matter — that will air on TNT. 

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The cable channel is in its final days broadcasting the NBA before the league packs up its basketballs and heads over to NBC and Amazon’s Prime Video as part of a new media rights deal that kicks in next season. 

The new deal will see conference finals games rotate between NBC and the streaming service. 

Kevin Harlan, Reggie Miller and Stan Van Gundy will all be on the call for the remainder of the series as TNT ends its run of broadcasting the NBA.