Historic NBA Finals ratings and Fox's $22 billion Roku deal show live sports are key to winning the streaming wars

By Weston Blasi

'In this streaming-first world, live, shared moments are a rare thing. Sports is where that still exists.'

Jalen Brunson #11 of the New York Knicks reacts during the fourth quarter against the San Antonio Spurs in Game 5.

The NBA Finals between the New York Knicks and the San Antonio Spurs was the most watched basketball playoff series since Michael Jordan's last one with the Chicago Bulls in 1998 - and media companies are taking notice.

The ratings are in, and the finals averaged 20.6 million viewers on ABC - more than doubling last year's NBA Finals, which averaged 10.27 million viewers across seven games. These were the highest basketball ratings since ABC and ESPN started carrying the NBA Finals in 2003.

The closeout Game 5, where the Knicks clinched their first championship title in decades, had 24.5 million viewers, and was the most watched Game 5 of the NBA Finals since 1998.

The record ratings reinforces the view that live sports are one of the biggest needle movers for capturing viewership in today's fractured streaming landscape. And the ratings feat is even more impressive when you consider it's comparable to the sort of viewership seen before streaming even existed.

"The media landscape is so fragmented, and the algorithm delivers the personal tastes," Bob Mitchell, founder of Mitchell Partnership Alliances and adjunct professor at American University's Kogod School of Business, told MarketWatch. "Back in '98, options were so much less than [how] it is now."

There were no streaming services back then, and only a fraction of the TV channels. It's become a running joke in the entertainment industry that the hit NBC show "Seinfeld" routinely had more viewers in the late 1990s (averaging over 20 million a season, and peaking at 76.3 million for its series finale) than the NFL games that aired on NBC in 2025. No network TV shows in the streaming era come close to those "Seinfeld" ratings.

So what made this year's NBA Finals so unique?

For starters, the 2026 finals had one of the premier large-market franchises in the NBA in the Knicks, who were going for their first championship in 53 years while facing a generational player in Spurs star Victor Wembanyama.

But it was also a cultural phenomenon. "Don't discount the power of the New York marketplace. We also saw the celebrity factor - it was their social event," Mitchell said. "[Timothée] Chalamet was in the locker room! Ben Stiller is posing with the trophy. It's a cultural experience. The Knicks are that."

'Anything can happen'

But the strong ratings also reinforce a reality that broadcasters and streamers have been seeing develop for years: Live sports remain one of the few forms of programming capable of attracting massive audiences in a segmented media-consumption age.

"It's the live aspect of sports," Mitchell said. "We saw clearly in this series that anything can happen. The Spurs leading by 29 points and losing? Anything can happen."

Sporting events accounted for 96 of the top 100 most watched telecasts of 2025 - tying with 2023 for the most ever, per Sports Business Journal. (In 2024, the U.S. presidential election kept live sports at a modest 87 of the 100 most watched telecasts for that year.)

'It's the live aspect of sports. ... The Spurs leading by 29 points and losing? Anything can happen.'Bob Mitchell, American University

The FIFA World Cup, in which play opened late last week in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, is already drawing huge American viewing audiences. The U.S. men's national team's opening match against Paraguay on Friday was the most watched USMNT telecast of all time, with Fox, Fox One and Tubi reporting a record 15.98 million viewers. Roughly 25 million people in total watched the match when factoring in Spanish-language broadcasts on Telemundo and Peacock (CMCSA).

Numbers like that are exactly why media companies are going all in on sports. In a world where everyone is watching something different on their own screens, a major sporting event is pretty much the only thing left that can force millions of us to sit down and watch simultaneously - and Mitchell believes that the amounts companies will pay for the rights to broadcast sports will only keep going up.

It's why the NFL got $110 billion for its broadcast-rights deal in 2021 and why the NBA got $76 billion for its media rights in 2024.

Just this week, Fox Corp. (FOXA) (FOX) announced it is buying Roku (ROKU) in a deal valued at $22 billion, touting a focus on live sports. (Fox and News Corp (NWSA) (NWS), the parent of MarketWatch publisher Dow Jones, share common ownership.)

"This is a defining moment for Fox, and a natural extension of the deliberate and focused strategy we have been executing for nearly a decade," said Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch. "In 2019, we reoriented the company around live news and sports."

Multiple industry sources applauded the move, saying it keeps Fox focused on data and live programming rather than vast content libraries - something that rival streamers like Disney+ (DIS) have attempted to bolster.

'In this streaming-first world, live, shared moments are a rare thing. Sports is where that still exists.'Kevin Krim, EDO

"We've seen that live-sports engagement on streaming platforms drives strong ad engagement," Kevin Krim, CEO of TV market-research company EDO, told MarketWatch. "This new Fox-Roku deal gives [Fox] the infrastructure to scale that advantage across every game, every season, with millions of households starting their TV journey on a Roku device."

Last week, the Justice Department approved Paramount Skydance's (PSKY) proposed $111 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) - clearing the way for a possible consolidation of streaming services like HBO Max and Paramount+, and giving the new company access to live-sports programming like the NHL and the NCAA basketball tournament. Paramount also broadcast UFC Freedom 250, the Ultimate Fighting Championship event that took place Sunday on the South Lawn of the White House. Viewership figures for that event have not yet been released yet, but they are forecast to be strong.

With marquee events like the ongoing World Cup, the upcoming U.S. Open tennis tournament and the approaching NFL season, it's shaping up to be another big year for sports viewership - and tapping into these events can really pay off for media companies.

Netflix (NFLX) is paying a reported $75 million per game to show NFL games on Christmas, in addition to its live boxing events such as the December 2024 bout between YouTube personality Jake Paul and former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson. That fight drew 108 million global views, making it the most streamed sporting event in history.

And Amazon (AMZN) now owns the rights to show NFL's Thursday Night Football, NBA games and New York Yankees baseball games. In fact, some Netflix investors have been getting worried about the heated competition to stream live sports, as Amazon and YouTube (GOOGL) (GOOG) keep encroaching on Netflix's turf.

"In this streaming-first world, live, shared moments are a rare thing," Krim said. "Sports is where that still exists."

-Weston Blasi

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

06-17-26 1237ET