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ESPN posted a graphic Thursday on X touting the success of its NBA Christmas Day ratings. “NBA action on ESPN platforms delivered the most-watched Christmas in FIVE YEARS‼️,” ESPN exclaimed before the following three data points:

  • 84% from last year
  • #LakeShow vs. #DubNation (7.7M), most-watched NBA reg. season game since 2019
  • Season-to-date viewership up 4%

While technically the data points are accurate, ESPN had to leave out a lot of context to arrive at those points. So much so that the graphic tells a much different story than the reality does.

Let’s take it step-by-step:

ESPN says the games were up 84 percent from a year ago. Kind of.

Last year, three of the five Christmas games aired exclusively on ESPN, a cable network. This year, all five games aired on ESPN and ABC, a broadcast network. 

The addition of ABC, which is in far more homes than ESPN, can easily add another 500,000 to 2 million more viewers to a live sporting event. It often does.

Plus, the NBA competed head-to-head with three NFL games last Christmas. The NFL only scheduled two NFL games on Wednesday, leaving the NBA as the only sport on television after 7:30 pm ET.

That leads us to No. 2: the claims that Lakers-Warriors “was the highest-rated regular-season game since 2019.”

Young Boston Celtics fans wearing Santa hats watch the fourth quarter at TD Garden in Boston. (Photo by Danielle Parhizkaran/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

ESPN put its sexiest matchup (LeBron vs. Curry) in primetime on ABC on Christmas (the day most Americans are home) without any competition from the NFL. In past years, ESPN booked its sexiest matchup at 3:30 p.m. against a football game, leaving the primetime block exclusive to ESPN.

For example, ESPN ran Heat vs. 76ers at 8 p.m. ET last Christmas Day only on the cable channel.

Finally, it’s unclear what ESPN means when it touts a “4% year-over-year growth season-to-date.” This data point is neither mentioned nor explained in the official press release. But, like the rest of the article, it appears to be aggressively misleading.

As of last week, NBA games this season were averaging 1.4 million viewers on ABC, ESPN NBATV, and TNT, down 25 percent from last season. Games on ESPN alone were down 28 percent. Therefore, ESPN is either cherry-picking some random viewership metric or applying the inflated 84 percent Christmas bump to its near 30 percent decline.

ESPN is going to be so furious that we caught these spins. Fortunately, for them, most dutiful members of the press didn’t bother to look into the ratings before sharing them.

Take a look:

By the way, OutKick’s live coverage of the 2024 Summer Olympics was up more than 84 percent compared to our coverage of the 2024 Summer Olympics in 2023.

Does that interest Bomani too?