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As the New York Knicks clinched their first championship in 53 years and the NBA notched its highest Finals series ratings since 1998, professional basketball was inking another record. The five-game series between the Knicks and the San Antonio Spurs generated "15 billion views and counting on social media, the most ever for an NBA Finals and nearly triple the previous record set in 2025," according to the NBA. Game 5 alone generated more than 4 billion views on social media platforms, breaking the record set three days prior by Game 4. It's emblematic of an intensifying battleground in live sports as professional leagues seek to reach new and younger fans and media consumption shifts online. TV and streaming platforms have been attracting some of the biggest audiences for live sports this year. The NBA Finals series claimed an average of 20.6 million viewers per game on Disney's ABC and ESPN networks. And yet social platforms like TikTok and Google's YouTube are claiming a disproportionate amount of viewing time for Generations Z and Alpha — often at no cost. That's left the sports leagues and live rights holders weighing whether to go all in on social as a funnel for future audiences or to reinforce the walled garden of subscription programming to offset rising broadcast fees.
New York Knicks fans gather outside of Madison Square Garden before Game 4 of the NBA Finals between New York Knicks and San Antonio Spurs, on June 10, 2026 in New York City. Adam Gray | Getty Images
"It's always a question of what the leagues are doing versus what the rights holders want to do," said Jonathan Miller, a former Fox Corp. and NBA executive who currently serves as chief executive of Integrated Media, which specializes in digital media investments. "Reaching and cultivating the youth sports base is a major priority and focus of the leagues themselves," Miller said. "In today's fragmented landscape, it is no longer a luxury to have a young base, it is a necessity to ensure a healthy future."
New fans, new ways to watch
For years YouTube has snagged the biggest share of streaming viewership, according to Nielsen's monthly report known as "The Gauge." Rather than watching live games in their entirety, consumers are increasingly watching sports clips, highlights, athlete-made videos and creator content on social platforms. According to S&P Global's 2025 "State of U.S. sports viewing" report, 68% of sports viewers reported watching live games on TV or through streaming; 38% reported watching highlights, interviews and other clips on social media, YouTube and other platforms; and 12% said they interact with social media accounts or fan forums for professional players, teams or leagues. "What we're seeing today is the evolution of consumption," said Adam Kelly, president of global sports marketing agency IMG. The TKO Group -owned firm packages and sells media rights and brand rights as well as providing consultancy on some of the biggest TV deals globally. Live games that are aired exclusively on streaming consistently draw significantly younger audiences than those aired on linear TV, according to Nielsen, which recently began breaking down weekly sports viewership consumption.
If you are the broadcaster and proactively using your social and digital platforms to push out tons and tons of highlights and content ... you're kind of feeding the beast. William Mao senior vice president of media rights consulting at Octagon
The NBA Finals saw an increase in new viewers to streaming platforms like Disney's ESPN, according to Apptopia. Even streaming-only versions of pay TV bundles like Fubo and YouTube saw similar results. However, when broken down by age, those new viewers for the NBA postseason tended to skew older, according to Apptopia's data. ESPN streaming saw an increase of 38% in new users over the age of 46, while the youngest cohort between 17 and 25 was up just 8%. For Fubo and YouTube, the growth was also heavily skewed toward the over-46 audience. "Our hypothesis when it comes to young fans is that they play a very important part in consuming sport and will continue to, but their consumption behavior is slightly different," said Kelly. "People talk about fragmentation of the audience, but actually, consumption numbers have continued to increase."
Sports highlights
Industry executives told CNBC that as sports migrate more and more onto social platforms, the content is acting as a conduit to live games, not a pure replacement. "It's just a continued development of the accessibility of content — a lot more platforms in the marketplace catering to short-form content," said William Mao, senior vice president of media rights consulting at Octagon, a global sports and entertainment agency. Mao said the rise of social content around live sports is an acknowledgment that companies need to "target and engage those younger demographics, those future consumers ... where they are," Mao said. The appetite for clips is creating something of a land grab between leagues and media rights holders, according to Mao. Both the broadcasters and the leagues have their own social media presences. If multiple accounts want use of the same footage, it could dilute the audience. Mao said as a result, media negotiations can go so far as to determine how long a highlight or clip can be used exclusively on one platform versus another. The hope is that a healthy highlight reel on social feeds spurs interest among younger fans in live matchups.
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