For all the noise about the NBA’s declining viewership, the recipe to attract fans to their TV screens seemed pretty clear Tuesday night: star power, a meaningful game, and some off-court drama.

The late-night game between the Lakers and Mavericks, the first game for Los Angeles star Luka Dončić against Dallas since it traded him to Los Angeles earlier this month, drew 2.5 million viewers on TNT, the network’s biggest audience since the NBA’s opening night.

The record continues a trend of strong viewership for Lakers games since Dončić’s debut on Feb. 10 against the Jazz, which drew 2.01 million viewers on ESPN. That contest was one of the league’s most-watched games exclusively on cable this year, despite it being a blowout and a late flex into national TV following the trade. 

Dončić, LeBron James, and the Lakers also hosted the Nuggets on Saturday, drawing 2.87 million viewers on ABC, one of this season’s 10 most-watched games.

The trend bodes well for the April 9 rematch between the Lakers and Mavs, which will be the first time Dončić returns to Dallas. The five-time All-Star made it clear after Tuesday’s game that one meeting with Dallas has not yet cured him of the shock of the trade.

“The closure’s going to take a while, I think,” Dončić said. “I’m glad this game is over. There’s a lot of emotions, but we go little by little, and every day is better.”

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Dončić’s performance wasn’t the only story to watch Tuesday night. Much-maligned Mavericks GM Nico Harrison, who facilitated the controversial deal, was in attendance, and he received a chorus of “Thank you, Nico” chants from the Los Angeles fans.

Anthony Davis, the best player the Mavericks received in return for Dončić, was not in action due to an injury he sustained in his Dallas debut, but he was on the bench. Mavericks minority owner Mark Cuban, who told FOS that he did not know about the trade until just before it was executed, was also there.

The different factors ostensibly trumped the presence of LeBron James—who at 40 years old, is still one of the NBA’s biggest draws—and his meeting with Kyrie Irving, whom he won a title with in 2016 and was Dončić’s running mate in the 2024 NBA Finals. 

Organic Rivalry

The NBA has achieved a level of parity over the last half-decade, but it’s also dampened some rivalries built through Finals battles, like the one in the mid-to-late 2010s between the Cavaliers and Warriors. It doesn’t help that the NBA’s divisions matter very little to playoff seeding, unlike in the NFL, a key reason for building rivalries in football.

The league tried to fix this by launching Rivalry Week in 2022, though results have been mixed. The Warriors-Lakers game on Jan. 25 was one of the most-watched matchups of the year, but there was limited buzz outside of that game.

This Dončić trade may just be the spark the league needed to build a rivalry between the Lakers and Mavericks, especially as Dallas is expected to be a competitive team for the foreseeable future. The two teams could also meet in the playoffs this year with the Lakers battling for a top-three seed and the Mavericks a game out of sixth in the Western Conference.

Paramount’s planned $8 billion merger with Skydance Media is still on and scheduled to close before the end of June. What happens between now and then, however, will likely be the source of significant drama. 

The CBS Sports parent company said late Wednesday that it is proceeding with the large-scale deal, “subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions.” The statement was part of fourth-quarter and full-year results for 2024 that included a 1% dip in revenue last year to $29.2 billion but a 30% rise in adjusted operating income to $3.1 billion. The company missed analyst projections on both revenue and earnings per share. 

The complex, multipart Skydance deal has been in the works since last summer, and it has gone through a variety of twists and turns, including an aborted rival bid from media executive Edgar Bronfman Jr. Skydance’s backers include the billionaire Ellison family and RedBird Capital Partners.

Final approval of the agreement lies with the U.S. government, and CBS News has separately been in the midst of a large-scale legal battle with President Donald Trump—a situation that could complicate the final deal stages considerably. If the pact is completed, though, a larger and stronger Paramount will likely be more of a force in the sports rights market. 

Most recently, the company has been among those mentioned as possible suitors for MLB national rights that are a source of rising optimism among some clubs.

Paramount co-CEOs George Cheeks, Chris McCarthy, and Brian Robbins did not expand on the Skydance situation in an earnings call with analysts late Wednesday.

Football Watching

Paramount, meanwhile, credited strong NFL viewership during the fourth quarter—even as the league overall fell 2% during the regular season, industry sources said CBS posted a 1% decline, and the company’s TV revenue declined by 4% during the period to $4.98 billion. Playoff viewership that included a whopping 57.7 million for the AFC championship game was not part of the fourth-quarter results. During the NFL regular season, Paramount said its streaming viewership rose nearly 60%, and CBS Sports had two of the three most-watched games.

“All of this speaks to the enduring relevance of broadcast television and its ability to reach mass audiences,” Cheeks said. 

Subscriber totals for Paramount+ have hit 77.5 million, ranking as one of the largest streaming services in the industry. 

The release of Paramount’s latest financial results closely followed the resolution of a carriage dispute with YouTube TV, the No. 4 U.S. pay-TV distributor. The situation could have threatened access for millions to major upcoming events such as March Madness and the Masters but ultimately was settled in a retooled agreement.

Editors’ note: RedBird IMI, of which RedBird Capital Partners is a joint venture partner, is the majority owner of Front Office Sports.

INDIANAPOLIS — The NFL’s international expansion and franchises’ upcoming stadium modifications for the 2026 FIFA World Cup will be key moments for the NFL Players Association as it looks to gain ground in the grass vs. turf playing-surface debate.

“It’s never going to disappear,” NFLPA executive director Lloyd Howell told Front Office Sports at the NFL Scouting Combine. “Because with the interest in playing more international games, they’re all soccer pitches.”

The NFL will play at least seven games in five countries outside the U.S. during the 2025 regular season and recently announced a game in Australia in 2026. International NFL games have often been criticized for subpar surfaces, whether the stadiums have grass or turf.

“You’ve got inconsistency when you introduce another variable—call it international—which then doesn’t make the issue go away,” Howell says, noting more than 90% of NFL players prefer to play on natural grass surfaces. Half of the league’s 30 stadiums use artificial turf, which can vary between venues. 

“We are in agreement, you have to have consistency,” Howell says. “So, whether it’s grass or high-grade synthetic, it has to be consistent.”

Soccer Story

Six NFL stadiums—in Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, and New Jersey—will temporarily install natural grass surfaces ahead of hosting matches during the World Cup, and Howell plans to capitalize on those moves.

“We’ll remind everyone that just saying ‘it can’t be done,’ or ‘we’re not going to do it,’ well, you’re doing it,” he says.

Some teams are also removing seats to comply with FIFA regulations. “You can’t say you can’t do it because not only did you change the field surface, you knocked out bleachers so you can accommodate soccer,” Howell says.

Howell highlighted the Dolphins—who received the top ranking in the NFLPA’s team report cards released Wednesday—and owner Stephen Ross’s efforts to consistently replace the grass at Hard Rock Stadium, and supply outdoor grass practice fields. 

“It can be done, and when I point that out to other owners, they bristle,” Howell says.

CBA Talks Looming

It’s too early to say whether playing surfaces will be a major negotiating point for the next collective bargaining agreement after the current contract expires at the end of this decade. 

The NFLPA has a field surface working group that will meet this week in Indianapolis, and a player representative meeting in March, which will help determine how important the issue is to players moving forward. 

“Depending on what the guys’ prioritizations are, let’s see where field surfaces rank,” Howell says. “Is it middle of the pack? Toward the bottom? Because we’re not going to waste time negotiating over things that aren’t a priority.”