The NBA finals finished with higher TV ratings in Atlanta than in all but five markets outside the states of the participating teams.
Atlanta ranked 11th among the nation’s 56 metered markets in the Nielsen ratings for ABC’s coverage of the Dallas Mavericks-Miami Heat series, with the top four markets and five of the top 10 in Florida and Texas.
The highest rated market outside those states? Cleveland, where LeBron James starred for the Cavaliers before bolting for the Heat. The Cleveland market includes Akron, Ohio, James’ hometown.
In metro Atlanta, the six-game series — won by Dallas — posted a rating of 13.5, meaning 13.5 percent of the area’s TV households tuned in on average.
Here are the 10 markets with the highest ratings for the series: Miami-Fort Lauderdale (33.7), Dallas-Fort Worth (30.7), West Palm Beach (17.7), San Antonio (15.9), Cleveland (15.8), New Orleans (15.1), Memphis (14.5), Houston (14.5), Oklahoma City (14.4) and Chicago (13.7).
Atlanta’s 13.5 rating was significantly higher than the national average of 10.1 for the series.
The Atlanta rating translated to a local audience of about 325,000 households on average. Mavericks-Heat games outdrew Braves games in Atlanta by a margin of about 4-to-1 on average.
Atlanta’s NBA finals audience peaked for Sunday night’s Game 6, which drew a local rating of 15.2, or about 365,000 households.
Nationally, the 10.1 rating for the series was the second highest for an NBA finals since 2004, but was down from last year’s seven-game Los Angeles Lakers-Boston Celtics series, which posted a 10.6.
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