Anthony's Knicks Debut Gets MSG's Top Regular-Season TV Rating in 16 Years
Carmelo Anthony #7 of the New York Knicks on the court against the Milwaukee Bucks at Madison Square Garden. Photographer: Chris Trotman/Getty Images
Carmelo Anthony’s debut produced the highest television rating for a regular-season New York Knicks game on the MSG Network in 16 years and four times this season’s average.
Anthony, acquired two days ago in a trade with the Denver Nuggets, scored 27 points last night to lead the Knicks to a 114-108 win against the Milwaukee Bucks at Madison Square Garden in New York.
The 6.75 rating, according to Nielsen Co. data, was the highest for a regular-season Knicks game on the network since March 28, 1995, when Michael Jordan scored 55 points in his return to New York following his first retirement from the National Basketball Association.
“Last night’s Knicks game was a defining moment at the Garden,” Mike Bair, president of MSG Media, said today in a statement.
More than 500,000 households watched the game on MSG in the New York area, and the rating easily topped this season’s previous network high of 3.61 for the Knicks-Boston Celtics game on Dec. 15. The combined television rating for that game against the Celtics on the MSG and ESPN networks was 6.27.
The average rating for 52 Knicks games on MSG this season is 1.62, the network said in a news release.
To contact the reporter on this story: Erik Matuszewski in New York at matuszewski@bloomberg.net]
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Sillup at msillup@bloomberg.net
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