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Technical difficulties did not hurt the viewership of Amazon Prime Video’s debut broadcast of the NBA’s play-in tournament.
The six games averaged 2.79 million viewers, an 18% increase from last year’s games, which were broadcast on TNT and ESPN. This year, the play-in tournament shifted to Prime Video as a part of the league’s new media rights deal.
The tournament started off with broadcast issues after the Hornets–Heat game went to black with 48.1 seconds left in overtime and the Hornets ahead 123–120. The broadcast displayed 20 seconds of dead air before switching to a blue screen that said “Technical Difficulties.” In total, the broadcast was out for roughly two minutes, which equated to 22 seconds of game action. Amazon later attributed the issue to “hardware failure in our production truck.”
That wasn’t the only issue with Prime’s presentation.
With 4.7 seconds left, Amazon’s scorebug erroneously showed that the Heat had a timeout remaining, when it didn’t. Prime Video analyst Stan Van Gundy corrected the scorebug by saying, “There’s no timeouts left for Miami.” The error was removed from the scorebug shortly after the final buzzer sounded in a 127–126 Hornets win.
As for the increase in viewership, it didn’t hurt that Stephen Curry’s Warriors played twice, including in a matchup against Kawhi Leonard’s Clippers. Wednesday’s Warriors-Clippers game averaged 3.15 million viewers while Friday’s Warriors-Suns game averaged 3.65 million, which made them the two most-watched games of the play-in tournament. Magic-76ers on Wednesday was the third-most-viewed game with 2.66 million viewers, indicating a drop-off in interest and star power after the Warriors and Clippers’ games.
Prime Video also drew a lower median viewer age than last year of 45.6, which is more than four years younger than the previous year’s audience, according to Nielsen’s Big Data + Panel measurement. Following its successful play-in debut, Amazon’s coverage of the NBA postseason continues with select first and second-round matchups.
