https://www.kkr.com/insights/arctos-sports-media-update-2026It's easy to look at this chart from Arctos and say wow, look at the NBA.
This chart is indexed to 2014 and shows growth rate, but the percentages hide size.
-- NFL: +3.5% on 18.7M viewers. About 630K more
-- NBA: +30.4% on 1.78M. About 415K more
-- MLB: -2.6% on about 2.3M. About 60K fewer
-- NHL: -11.4% on 546K. About 70K fewer
The NBA grew faster, but the NFL added more viewers. MLB and NHL are both down, but by fewer than 100K viewers per game.
Arctos also notes that new Nielsen measurement drives part of the growth for all four leagues.