The NBA tried something new for this year’s All-Star Game. Instead of the traditional East vs. West game, the league introduced a four-team mini-tournament, each featuring eight players.
Unfortunately, the new format failed to shake things up. Viewership numbers were once again disappointing, following the downward trend that the league has been battling for years.
All-Star Game Viewership Continues To Spiral
The main event of the NBA All-Star Game, held on Feb. 16 at the Chase Center, averaged 4.72 million viewers across TNT, TBS, and truTV. That’s down 13% from last year’s 5.40 million and only slightly better than the all-time low of 4.59 million in 2023. Given the recent adjustments in Nielsen’s out-of-home viewing numbers, this year’s audience might have been even lower than in 2023.
The NBA All-Star Game averaged 4.7 million viewers—the second-least-watched game on record.
Despite the new tournament-style format, viewership was down 13% from last year. pic.twitter.com/viO30uww49
— Front Office Sports (@FOS) February 19, 2025
All-Star Saturday Night on Feb. 15 was also a disaster, drawing only 3.39 million viewers on TNT and truTV. That’s a 26% drop from last year and the lowest audience for the event in at least 25 years. Additionally, the NBA also got lapped by the United States-Canada NHL Four Nations Face-Off game, which brought in 4.4 million viewers on ABC.
While TV ratings were ugly, social media engagement told a different story. According to the league, the event set an all-time record for engagement, hitting one billion views across its social media accounts by Saturday night of the All-Star weekend. That’s up 17% from last year.
One of the biggest highlights was Mac McClung’s insane dunk over the 2025 Kia K5 GT. The dunk contest moment helped the NBA’s TikTok account hit its most-viewed day ever, generating over 100 million views on Saturday alone.
The 2025 Ruffles NBA All-Star Celebrity Game also sparked a ton of discussion online, with social media chatter up 43% from last year, thanks to viral moments featuring Kai Cenat and Druski.
Why Did the 2025 NBA All-Star Game Flop?
Despite changes in the format, fans and analysts weren’t impressed. Draymond Green of the Golden State Warriors gave the format a “zero out of 10.” Another reason that might have contributed to low viewership was big names backing out at the last moment.
LeBron James, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Anthony Edwards were all initially part of the game, but James and Edwards backed down at the last moment citing injury issues. The NBA couldn’t replace them, which left the event without some of its biggest stars.
On top of that, the game had to go up against “SNL 50,” the 50th-anniversary special of “Saturday Night Live,” which pulled in 14.8 million viewers — more than three times what the All-Star Game got. For the NBA, the only relief was the upward trends in social media engagement. It’s clear though that the league needs to add something out of the box to reignite fans’ interest, but reigniting player passion in the exhibition is a tall task.
