Tag Archives: LeBron James

LeBron show generates highest cable rating ever for NBA

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Wasn’t that fun to see LeBron James throw it back in the face of all those ESPNers who buried him and the Miami Heat Tuesday? Count on the First Take’s Skip Bayless to be fairly insufferable if the Heat win Saturday. He was about the only person in Bristol who stuck with LeBron.

As expected, Game 6 broke ratings records. From ESPN:

Thursday night’s NBA Eastern Conference Finals Game 6 on ESPN – the Miami Heat defeated the Boston Celtics to even their series at 3-3 – generated an 8.2 overnight rating, the highest overnight for an NBA game ever on cable (records back to 2003), according to Nielsen. The 8.2 for Game 6 surpasses the previous record, a 7.9 for Game 4 of this series, as the best overnight ever.

The 8.2 overnight rating is up 49 percent compared to the most recent Game 6 on ESPN – Boston/Orlando in the 2010 Eastern Conference Finals – which posted a 5.5.

In Miami, Game 6 delivered a 22.0 rating, the highest-rated NBA playoff game on ESPN in the market. In Boston, the game averaged a 20.5, the second highest-rated NBA game on ESPN in the market.

Besides the Celtics, the other big loser was the NHL Thursday. Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final also is slated for Saturday night.

 

Saturday flashback: LeBron James’ first game in NBA

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Last week, we offered ESPN’s broadcast of LeBron James in high school. Today, we’ll look at its broadcast of his first pro game.

I was going to save this for later in the playoffs, but given the way the Indy series is going, I wanted to post this while he’s still playing.

The open, with Brad Nessler, Sean Elliott and Dan Majerle, is featured here. Then amazingly, the game is joined in progress as the Knicks game went long. Can you imagine that happening today?

As a result, ESPN had to show highlights of James’ 10-point first quarter against Sacramento.