More than 500,000 homes in the Atlanta TV market watched Monday night as the Golden State Warriors defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers for the NBA championship.

ABC's telecast of NBA Finals-clinching Game 5 posted a 21.0 rating in Atlanta, higher than in any other metered market outside the states of the participating teams. Two markets in California (San Francisco-Oakland and Sacramento) and two in Ohio (Cleveland and Columbus) drew higher ratings than Atlanta.

The rating is the percentage of households that watched on average. A 21.0 rating in the Atlanta market equals an audience of about 507,000 homes.

By comparison, Monday night’s Braves-Nationals game posted a 2.2 TV rating in the Atlanta market, equaling an audience of about 53,000 homes.

Ratings were strong in Atlanta throughout the Warriors-Cavaliers series, as they usually are for the NBA Finals here.

For each of the five games of this year’s finals, the Atlanta ratings were among the top six nationally and among the top three outside California and Ohio.

The Atlanta ratings by game: 15.6 for Game 1, 17.0 for Game 2, 18.6 for Game 3, 16.0 for Game 4 and 21.0 for Game 5.

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Hawks television analyst Dominique Wilkins (left), along with play-by-play announcer Bob Rathbun, will call all three exhibition games. (David Zalubowski/AP 2021)

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