June 8 (Bloomberg) -- Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James's first National Basketball Association finals appearance marked the lowest-rated primetime opening championship game in league history.

The Cavaliers' 85-76 loss to San Antonio last night, which aired on Walt Disney Co.'s ABC television network, was watched by about 9.2 million people in the U.S., scoring a 6.3 percent rating, according to Nielsen Media Research.

The ABC program also failed to win the night, losing to Fox's ``So You Think You Can Dance,'' which drew about 11.1 million viewers for a 6.9 rating out of the 111.4 million U.S. households with TVs, Nielsen said.

Previously, the lowest-rated opening NBA championship game was in 2003, when the Spurs and New Jersey Nets drew 6.4 percent of television households. Last year's matchup between the Miami Heat and Dallas Mavericks had a 7.7 rating for its opener, while the Spurs-Pistons series in 2005 opened with a 7.2. Ratings help advertisers determine what to pay for commercials.

Last night, Tim Duncan scored 24 points and had 13 rebounds while teammate Tony Parker had a game-high 27 points for the Spurs, who held James to 14 points on 4-of-16 shooting. James, who scored 48 points in Cleveland's 109-107 double-overtime win in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals against the Detroit Pistons, didn't make his first field goal until midway through the third quarter.

``The matchup is really dependent on how well LeBron plays and how many games they get,'' Neal Pilson, a former president of CBS Sports who runs Pilson Communications, said in a telephone interview about the ratings. ``If San Antonio wins Game 2 easily, then the public may see this as a non-competitive series. Game 2 could be more important than Game 1.''

Game 2, which tips off at 9 p.m. New York time on June 10, will also compete with the finale of ``The Sopranos,'' the HBO drama that is most-watched program in the history of cable television, according to Time Warner Inc.'s HBO.

To contact the reporter on this story: Mason Levinson in New York at mlevinson@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: June 8, 2007 19:09 EDT