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.

“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.”

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.

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.”

Rollo Goldstaub, the global head of sport at TikTok, said 42% of users watching sports content on the short-form video platform will go on to tune into a live game on TV or streaming.

Goldstaub said his job includes making sure the platform has content from across the sports ecosystem — the leagues, athletes, media broadcasts and content creators. He said content directly from the broadcaster or the league, such as game highlights, typically has high engagement.

IMG’s Kelly said younger audiences “have been asked to fit into the existing framework when it comes to sports consumption.”

“Distribution has stayed very much on the traditional means of delivery because it’s what worked so well for so long,” he said. “Non-linear [TV] young fans are spending most of their time on these platforms. Their preference is to consume content where they’re already consuming other material.”

While there are ways to monetize highlights and content on social media — such as ad revenue sharing on platforms like YouTube and other sponsorship opportunities — the main source of value for these games comes from the airing of the live matches on TV and streaming.

With sports fees skyrocketing, the need to earn that investment back grows.

The NBA is in the early years of its 11-year, $77 billion deal. The NFL, which is in the midst of its own 11-year deal worth a record $111 billion, has put heavier weight on advertising to drive revenue.

“There’s an argument that 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 accelerating that trend even further right?” Mao said. “You’re kind of feeding the beast.”

FIFA, the governing body over the World Cup, is allowing its global broadcasts to post more content on TikTok, whether that’s of the matches themselves or surrounding game footage.

The tournament is currently underway in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, and the first 10 minutes of every match can be shown on TikTok. When the stream ends there’s a direct link to stream the game, shown in the U.S. via networks owned by Fox and Comcast’s Telemundo.

In February, the NBA leaned into creator content during its All-Star weekend, inviting more than 200 digital natives to the event.

Rights holders Paramount Skydance and Disney have rolled out kid-friendly simulcasts to capture the youngest fans who may be tuning in alongside their parents.

Paramount’s CBS has aired alternate broadcasts of live sports on its children’s TV network Nickelodeon — from Christmas Day games to the 2023 Super Bowl — complete with slime graphics and characters like SpongeBob SquarePants running on the field.

Disney has tapped into its intellectual property for ESPN’s NFL games, too, including overlays with characters from films like “Monsters Inc.” and “Toy Story.”

And leagues across sport have partnered with Gamefam, a leading Roblox game developer, to bring their team jerseys and content to the video game platform that’s popular with Gen Z and Gen Alpha.

Roblox collaborated with Paramount for its Super Bowl broadcast on Nickelodeon, which became the biggest event ever on Roblox with 70 million visits in 30 days: “It was huge,” said Gamefam CEO Ricardo Briceno.

Briceno noted that building fandom and converting users from Roblox to beyond the platform is “very important.” That could mean watching a game or buying a jersey or other merchandise.

“That’s the funnel. You build awareness and love for the brand, then you put your dollars into it,” said Briceno.

Google’s YouTube, Amazon’s Prime Video, Apple and Netflix have begun to nab more games and garner big viewership numbers.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has been vocal about meeting young fans where they are on streaming services. The NBA’s latest media deal brought in Prime Video to replace Warner Bros. Discovery’s TNT Sports. YouTube aired its first-ever NFL game in September.

The strategy appears to be working. The NBA scored some of its highest-rated games this season, and the NFL’s “Thursday Night Football” on Prime Video has continued to capture more viewers — delivering its most-watched season in its 20-year history.

Still, IMG’s Kelly, TikTok’s Goldstaub and others said they don’t view the shift toward social media as a threat to the traditional media partners.

“We can be that partner that’s driving the value of these younger and more likely female fans, the ones that broadcasters are struggling to reach,” Goldstaub said.

“I think right now we’re really happy operating in this space of almost like part of the game,” he said. “We get to promote the full match live, we get to promote the broadcaster, but we also get to give users something really amazing and interesting to see.”