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This year brought staggering sports data points: A Super Bowl viewership record, the official start of the NBA’s new media deal, seven-game World Series and NBA Finals runs, and the emergence of one of sport’s great new rivalries.
Here are seven charts to help visualize some of the major events that defined the business of sports in 2025:
NFL Breaks More Viewership Records
Super Bowl LIX was the most-watched game in history, drawing 127.7 million viewers, breaking last year’s record of 123.3 million. Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime show was also the most-watched in history with 133.5 million viewers.
The viewership record is a testament to the NFL’s continued dominance of U.S. television ratings, but it also highlights the continued changes to Nielsen measurements that have boosted numbers across sports.
Nielsen officially began measuring out-of-home viewership for the Super Bowl in 2021 and integrated its full measurements this year, which have propelled viewership numbers across all sports.
Also new this year, Nielsen began using its Big Data + Panel measurements in August. These had not yet been integrated for Super Bowl LIX, but will be used for Super Bowl LX—which could help the NFL deliver another record high.
World Series vs. NBA Finals
With the NFL easily dominating viewership numbers in the U.S., the NBA Finals and World Series are often compared with each other, especially considering they are both seven-game series. The NBA outdrew MLB in 2022 and 2023, but baseball took over last year following a big-market face-off between the Dodgers and Yankees.
This year, both series went the full seven games—but the World Series significantly outperformed the NBA Finals again.
Shohei Ohtani led the Dodgers to their second-straight championship, and the series attracted 15.7 million viewers in the U.S., including 27.3 million for the 11-inning Game 7 vs. the Blue Jays. That was on pace with last year’s World Series, despite the Blue Jays replacing the more popular Yankees.
The NBA Finals featured two small markets in Oklahoma City and Indiana, which led to it being one of the least-watched Finals in history.
Shai Breaks $70 Million
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Thunder owned the NBA this year.
The Canadian guard led Oklahoma City to the 2025 NBA Championship and was named both the regular season and Finals MVP. Gilgeous-Alexander was the first player since LeBron James in 2013 to win both MVPs and a championship.
The Thunder rewarded their superstar guard with a four-year, $285 million extension in the summer. The contract kicks in starting the 2027–28 season, but at $68.3 million per year, it’s the largest average annual value in the NBA. The last two years of the deal will also be worth more than $70 million per year—the first contract to break that threshold for an annual salary.
Oklahoma City also signed Gilgeous-Alexander’s costars, Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren, to maximum deals, committing more than $820 million to three players.
The Thunder have carried their title momentum into the 2025–26 season, and are the prohibitive favorites to become repeat champions after a historic start.
Rising Costs to Watch the NBA
The 2025–26 season marked the start of the NBA’s 11-year, $77 billion media-rights deal. The $7 billion annual figure is nearly three times as much as the previous deal.
The NBA brought on NBC and Amazon as new partners, while parting ways with Warner Bros. Discovery for the first time in more than two decades. The deal allowed for 75 more national games this year with the addition of NBC’s over-the-air channel, and exclusive streamed games on Peacock and Prime Video for the first time.
But it’s also led to fragmentation and rising costs for fans hoping to catch all NBA games. The table above shows that a monthly subscription across all platforms needed to watch NBA games will cost nearly $130 before tax (YouTube TV is an example of a live-TV service, comparable to cable).
It will cost nearly $1,000 for an eight-month subscription, which would encompass a full NBA season, and nearly $1,400 for annual subscriptions across the four platforms.
WNBA CBA Proposal
A second-straight record-breaking season for the WNBA has been overshadowed by CBA negotiations, which could lead to a work stoppage before the 2026 season.
The crux of the negotiations has been around player salary as the Women’s National Basketball Players Association is looking for larger salaries and a larger share of revenue in its next CBA.
The two sides have yet to come to an agreement, but the latest proposal has the base max contract at $1 million and the minimum salary up to $225,000, which is close to last year’s max salary. But beyond pay, the WNBA’s new proposals have included cutting team housing, an earlier start date, and the addition of a draft combine, all of which have drawn mixed reactions from within the league.
College Football Coaching Buyouts
The college sports landscape has changed dramatically in the NIL era, especially following the House v. NCAA settlement last summer. That has led to growing NIL contracts, record transfer portal entrants, and even significant coaching changes.
College football saw a record total buyout amount of more than $250 million, highlighted by the $53 million owed to Brian Kelly by LSU. The school went on to sign Lane Kiffin away from Ole Miss for $91 million over seven years.
Other huge buyout numbers include $50 million to James Franklin from Penn State and $37 million to Mark Stoops from Kentucky.
The Hottest Rivalry in Sports
Men’s tennis stars Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner dominated tennis this year, meeting in six tournament finals and splitting the four Grand Slams. Alcaraz finished the year world No. 1, slightly ahead of Sinner at No. 2.
But Sinner with $19.1 million slightly outearned Alcaraz’s $18.8 million this year, and the official number does not include the $6 million the Italian won at the Six Kings Slam, an exhibition tournament. Sinner and Alcaraz had the second- and third-largest single-season earnings in history, respectively, behind only Novak Djokovic in 2015 ($21.2 million).
Alcaraz, 22, moved up to fifth in career earnings this year, while Sinner, 24, is not far behind at seventh. They are both on pace to pass fourth-place Andy Murray next year, but have a long way to go to catch tennis’ Big Three of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Djokovic.
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