Making a concrete assessment of the NBA ratings since re-start, or finding one single reason for their decline, is far from simple. According to Nielsen numbers, NBA viewership (P2+) was down around 13% versus last season before the shutdown (prior to March 12). The first week of games since the re-start were down 4% from the NBA’s pre-corona average, however, primetime games on ESPN and TNT in that same time period were up 6% in viewership when compared with the first chunk of the season.