Tuesday, May 17, 2022

NBA Playoffs Round 2 Out-of-Home Estimation

I recently made a post examining the ratings for the first round of the NBA Playoffs from 2019 and 2022 and estimating the impact of out-of home (OOH). Now, I'm going to use the same methodology to look at the ratings for the recently-concluded second round of the playoffs.

In the previous post, I used household (HH) ratings and viewers-per-home (VPN) estimations to extract the portion of the OOH audience that is now lumped in with the in-home audience. The main purpose of this, for me, is to better compare the ratings this year with previous years when OOH wasn't yet included.

I've included the HH rating and total viewership for each game of both the 2019 and 2022 first rounds, and I used the HH Universe Estimates for both years (119.9 million in 2019 & 122.4 million in 2022) to estimate the the total number of households (in millions) based on the HH rating. Because we have the HH ratings to 2-decimal places, the margin-of-error for the HHs estimate is only 0.006 million in either direction.

2019 NBA Playoffs Second Round
DateTeamsNetworkHH
Rating
EST HH
(000s)
Viewers
(millions)
EST
Viewers
Per Home
April 27, 2019Raptors/76ersTNT1.952.3383.0751.32
April 28, 2019Bucks/CelticsABC2.773.3214.2011.26
April 28, 2019Warriors/RocketsABC4.545.4437.2561.33
April 29, 2019Raptors/76ersTNT2.402.8783.8291.33
April 29, 2019Nuggets/BlazersTNT2.342.8063.6381.30
April 30, 2019Bucks/CelticsTNT2.773.3214.4041.33
April 30, 2019Warriors/RocketsTNT3.794.5446.0731.34
May 1, 2019Nuggets/BlazersTNT2.242.6863.5131.31
May 2, 2019Raptors/76ersESPN2.543.0453.9311.29
May 3, 2019Bucks/CelticsESPN2.593.1054.0571.31
May 3, 2019Nuggets/BlazersESPN2.292.7463.6511.33
May 4, 2019Warriors/RocketsABC4.365.2287.2271.38
May 5, 2019Raptors/76ersABC3.033.6334.6271.27
May 5, 2019Nuggets/BlazersTNT2.482.9744.0551.36
May 6, 2019Bucks/CelticsTNT2.452.9383.7161.26
May 6, 2019Warriors/RocketsTNT4.305.1566.8811.33
May 7, 2019Raptors/76ersTNT2.472.9623.7131.25
May 7, 2019Nuggets/BlazersTNT2.302.7583.4281.24
May 8, 2019Bucks/CelticsTNT3.073.6814.8211.31
May 8, 2019Warriors/RocketsTNT4.225.0606.7661.34
May 9, 2019Raptors/76ersESPN2.773.3214.4061.33
May 9, 2019Nuggets/BlazersESPN2.573.0813.9471.28
May 10, 2019Warriors/RocketsESPN4.455.3367.3281.37
May 12, 2019Raptors/76ersTNT4.014.8086.9351.44
May 12, 2019Nuggets/BlazersABC3.734.4726.3371.42
Average3.063.6664.8731.32

2022 NBA Playoffs Second Round
DateTeamsNetworkHH
Rating
EST HH
(000s)
Viewers
(millions)
EST
Viewers
Per Home
May 1, 2022Bucks/CelticsABC3.013.6845.3701.46
May 1, 2022Grizzlies/WarriorsABC4.115.0317.7141.53
May 2, 2022Heat/76ersTNT2.202.6933.8221.42
May 2, 2022Mavericks/SunsTNT2.332.8523.9371.38
May 3, 2022Bucks/CelticsTNT2.402.9384.1021.40
May 3, 2022Grizzlies/WarriorsTNT3.143.8435.3211.38
May 4, 2022Heat/76ersTNT2.012.4603.4251.39
May 4, 2022Mavericks/SunsTNT2.402.9384.1711.42
May 6, 2022Heat/76ersESPN2.052.5093.8341.53
May 6, 2022Mavericks/SunsESPN2.402.9384.4781.52
May 7, 2022Bucks/CelticsABC2.402.9384.6501.58
May 7, 2022Grizzlies/WarriorsABC3.223.9416.0951.55
May 8, 2022Heat/76ersTNT2.402.9384.6281.58
May 8, 2022Mavericks/SunsESPN2.172.6564.3551.64
May 9, 2022Bucks/CelticsTNT2.893.5375.0301.42
May 9, 2022Grizzlies/WarriorsTNT3.043.7215.2711.42
May 10, 2022Heat/76ersTNT2.202.6933.7751.40
May 10, 2022Mavericks/SunsTNT2.463.0114.1501.38
May 11, 2022Bucks/CelticsTNT2.723.3294.7881.44
May 11, 2022Grizzlies/WarriorsTNT2.793.4154.8231.41
May 12, 2022Heat/76ersESPN2.102.5703.7371.45
May 12, 2022Mavericks/SunsESPN2.533.0974.5291.46
May 13, 2022Bucks/CelticsESPN2.923.5745.5291.55
May 13, 2022Grizzlies/WarriorsESPN3.314.0516.2821.55
May 15, 2022Bucks/CelticsABC4.024.9207.4811.52
May 15, 2022Mavericks/SunsTNT3.213.9296.2861.60
Average2.713.3164.9071.48

The average HH rating was down nearly 10% from 2019 to 2022 (from 3.06 to 2.71), yet viewership was almost identical, and actually up slightly (from 4.87 million to 4.91 million). Although the same phenomenon is present in the first-round ratings, I think the impact of OOH is more obvious here with the HHs being down but the viewership being up. 

YearHH
Rating
EST HH
(000s)
Viewers
(millions)
EST
Viewers
Per Home
2019 Average3.063.6664.8731.32
2022 Average2.713.3164.9071.48
% Rise-9.55%0.71%11.70%

As I said before, HH are a fairly reliable way of estimating total viewership as long as you have an idea of how many viewers-per-home (VPH) a particular type of programming usually maintains. Generally, one can multiply the the number of households by the VPH and have a pretty close estimate for the total number of viewers. In 2019, the first-round VPH estimate was about 1.31 and that rose slightly to 1.32 for the second-round. In 2022, the first-round VPH appeared to be about 1.44 and was up to 1.48 for the second-round.

Using the 1.32 VPH from 2019 and applying it to the household figures from 2022, it appears that OOH accounted for about 10.7% of the total reported viewership (or about 525,000 on-average) while the comparable viewership number to 2019 is about 4.382 million. I estimated that OOH accounted for 10.01% in the first-round ratings, but with higher-ratings overall in the second-round, it makes sense for this number to rise slightly.

2022 NBA Playoffs
Second Round
Viewers
(millions)
%
In-Home Estimate4.38289.30%
Out-of-Home Estimate0.52510.70%

Source: Nielsen Media Research via ShowBuzzDaily

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