Jordan's debut for the Washington Wizards drew a 4.0 rating with a 5.7 share of audience according to overnight numbers from Nielsen Media Research.
However, the ratings failed to beat the third game in baseball's World Series with the New York Yankees win over the Arizona Diamondbacks on Fox Sports attracting a 17.4 score with a 26 audience share.
Though the NBA's head-to-head ratings battle with MLB went the way of the latter, a Turner spokesman confirmed the cable network was happy with the ratings, stating: "It was right in the neighbourhood of what we expected."
The return of Jordan was watched by 3.3 percent of TV households, tripling the 1.1 average rating for NBA regular-season games on TNT last season.
