While the rise of sports programming in recent years has been well-documented, new figures from Nielsen illustrate the extent of its dominance.
The measurement firm said sports accounted for 29.2% of all advertising-supported TV viewing by people 25 to 54 years old during the fourth quarter. The stat, spanning broadcast, cable and streaming, stat was part of a report on viewership trends in the fourth quarter of 2025, released Thursday in the runup to upfronts.
Looking at the rest of the pie without sports, broadcast accounted for just 9.8%, with cable coming in at 18%. Streaming drew by far the largest tune-in, with 43% of all non-sports viewing, a reflection of the overall growth of advertising on streaming services like Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, HBO Max and others.
Among adults aged 18 to 49, 63.8% of overall viewing was ad-supported, with 36.2% ad-free. Streaming is by far the largest venue for ad-supported TV viewing, at 66.7%, with broadcast and cable splitting the remainder fairly evenly. FAST channels, though much talked-about in recent years, account for a relatively small portion of overall ad-supported programming on streaming, at 18.9%. The bulk of advertising viewing is from what Nielsen labels “other ad supported” platforms, a group including YouTube, Hulu, Prime Video, Peacock, and Paramount+.
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The findings, especially about sports, are consistent with the most recent upfront pitches by media and streaming companies. Last year, Netflix hosted NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell at its event in New York, YouTube announced its own live NFL game, and Amazon and NBCUniversal touted their new agreements with the NBA. Disney heavily emphasized sports, plugging the mid-2025 rollout of the newly fortified ESPN app, which blends linear feeds with streaming and ESPN+ content.
Nielsen’s report captures an analysis of its national TV panel data, augmented by streaming platform ratings, from September 29 to December 28 of last year.