Is basketball getting more popular?
In fact, an NBC research shows that the popularity of NBA broadcast games is constantly increasing worldwide. So, the game is becoming more and more popular every year. If you are considering playing or watching basketball, now is the time to do it.
But the NBA is decidedly not more popular than ever by any means. To the contrary, regular-season ratings in 2020-21 were down 25% compared with the last uninterrupted season in 2018-19.
Generally, the NBA contributes about $10 billion to the annual revenue. Basketball is considered to be a male-dominant sport due to its physical nature, just like soccer and football. The rising interest in the game has compelled this league to be the most-watched sport worldwide.
NBA attendance is down, while NFL attendance sets a new record almost annually. NBA ratings have fallen almost 45 percent in the past decade, while NFL ratings remain tops in sports and have been rising mildly in recent years. For a decade the quality of the NBA product has been going downhill.
However, in more recent decades, American football has been the most popular sport in terms of broadcast viewership audience. Basketball has grown into the mainstream American sports scene since the 1980s, with ice hockey and soccer doing the same around the turn of the 21st century.
rank | Sport | Estimated Fans |
---|---|---|
1. | Soccer / Association Football | 3.5 Billion |
2. | Cricket | 2.5 Billion |
3. | Field Hockey | 2 Billion |
4. | Tennis | 1 Billion |
While 52 percent of self-declared sports fans follow the National Football League, compared to 42 percent for the NBA and 31 percent who follow the MLB, looking at the youngest group of respondents reveals a worrying trend for NFL executives.
# | NBA Team | Instagram Followers |
---|---|---|
1 | Golden State Warriors | 24,300,000 |
2 | LA Lakers | 19,800,000 |
3 | Cleveland Cavaliers | 12,400,000 |
4 | Chicago Bulls | 8,200,000 |
It is both playable and watchable. It just takes one person to play basketball, and it's a lot of fun. Basketball may be practiced on the road, at a schoolyard, inside, outdoors, and in a variety of other settings.
In North America, the NBA flourishes but does not dominate. Revenues are about half those of the highest-grossing sports league in the world, the National Football League, not that the two leagues are necessarily in competition.
Is NBA more popular than football?
Regarding the two associations, we may compare which sport has more viewership. In terms of viewership, the football league reigns supreme, and it's not even close. For instance, it accounted for a stunning 75 of the top 100 most viewed TV broadcasts of 2021.
For past three years the NBA Finals have had higher ratings than the World Series, cementing the fact that more people are watching the NBA than MLB.

The league averaged 1.6 million viewers across its ESPN, ABC, and TNT broadcasts this regular season, the most since it averaged 1.75 million in 2018-19 and up 19 percent on last season.
The 2022 NBA Finals is down 18% from 15 million viewers for the Raptors-Warriors series in 2019, and those telecasts did not have figures from any Canadian markets factored into the average.
NBA regular season games were averaging 1.59 million viewers across ESPN, ABC and TNT through last Wednesday, up 11% from the comparable period in 2019 (1.44M*).
- Super Bowl – 112.3 Million Viewers.
- World Series – 14.3 Million Viewers. ...
- NCAA Final Four – 18.1 Million Viewers. ...
- NBA Finals – 16.9 Million Viewers. ...
- The Masters – 13.16 Million Viewers.
- World Cup of Rugby- 12.8 Million Viewers. ...
- Wimbledon – 7.5 Million Viewers.
Football. Football, the most popular sport on the planet, is a mystery in India.
With 2.5 billion followers, cricket is the second-most popular sport (behind soccer/football with 3.5 billion followers).
American football (NFL)
With 37% of Americans (source: Gallup) declaring that it's their favourite sport to watch, American football is without a doubt the most popular sport in the USA. The NFL also has the highest average attendance (67,591) of any sports league in the world!
- PUBG. There is a huge fan following of PUBG in the world. ...
- Minecraft. ...
- Apex Legends. ...
- Fortnite. ...
- Call of Duty Mobile. ...
- Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. ...
- League of Legends (LOL)
Which sports have the highest fans?
In real life, football has by far the largest fan base with around 3.5 billion fans worldwide. This number includes people who play football as well as those who just watch it on TV or in person without playing themselves.
Rank | Sport | Average Instagram Followers |
---|---|---|
1 | Football | 1,472,594 |
2 | Basketball | 3,707,143 |
3 | Hockey | 688,065 |
3 | League | 875,500 |
With 21.59 million fans, the Los Angeles Lakers have the most followed National Basketball Association team account on Facebook. Bringing up the rear is the official account of the Atlanta Hawks, which has 1.57 million fans.
Zooming out to multi-year trends, basketball still ranks as the second-fastest-growing team sport, topped only by flag football. The latter's increase in popularity has gone hand-in-hand with the fall of tackle football, which has seen participation drop for five straight years.
Best Cities for Basketball Fans | Worst Cities for Basketball Fans |
---|---|
1. Los Angeles, CA | 284. Bethlehem, PA |
2. Boston, MA | 285. Evansville, IN |
3. Salt Lake City, UT | 286. Stephenville, TX |
4. San Francisco, CA | 287. Jersey City, NJ |