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The 2025 Business of YouTube Sports Awards | US Major Leagues| Powered by BuzzMyVideos
The Data Deep Dive: Who is Winning on YouTube Across US Major Leagues?
Newsletter BuzzMyVideos
December 19, 2025
The Business of YouTube
A weekly strategic lens for senior leaders into how YouTube is reshaping the business of technology, sports, music, entertainment, and culture.
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To your favourite newsletter, The Business of YouTube, brought to you by Paola Marinone and Bengü Atamer, founders of BuzzMyVideos and previously at YouTube and Google. We are bringing our exclusive insights from 20 years of experience leading strategy at YouTube and Google.
The 2025 Business of YouTube Sports Awards | US Major Leagues Edition | Powered by BuzzMyVideos
The 2025 Business of YouTube Sports Awards: US Major Leagues Edition
This week, we wanted to review and present the winners of the 2025 Business of YouTube Sports Awards, based on an analysis of the "Big Four" US Major Leagues: the NBA, NFL, MLB, and NHL.
The Lifetime Achievement Award: The NBA
Winner for: Total Market Reach and Subscriber Dominance
The NBA continues to set the gold standard for global digital reach. By leveraging its star-driven culture and international appeal, it has built a massive lead that remains unchallenged in total scale.
Total Views: 16,718,014,739.
Total Subscribers: 23,700,000.
The NBA’s ability to archive highlights and celebrate player legacies has resulted in a total view count that is nearly 20% higher than its closest competitor, the NFL.
US Major Leagues All Time Total Views
The Current MVP Award: The NFL
Winner for: Engagement Velocity and Yearly Momentum
While the NBA owns the historical record, the NFL is currently the most dynamic force on the platform. The league’s strategy focuses on high-impact engagement, driving the most consistent traffic throughout the year.
Monthly Views: 420,469,869.
Yearly Views: 2,500,000,000.
Average Views per Video: 254,277.
The NFL leads all leagues in "Current Velocity," generating significantly more yearly views than the NBA (2.5B vs.1.9B), despite having 8 million fewer subscribers.
US Major Leagues Yearly Views
The Industrial Output Award: MLB
Winner for: Content Volume and Archive Scaling
The MLB utilizes a unique "high-volume" strategy, treating its YouTube channel as a comprehensive video library. By uploading virtually every significant moment, they have created the largest content repository of the Big Four.
Total Uploads: 306,091.
To put this in perspective, MLB has uploaded over 5.5 times as many videos as the NFL and over 4 times as many as the NBA.
US Major Leagues Total Video Uploads
The Community Loyalty Award: MLB
Winner for: Average Views per Subscriber
Despite having a lower average view count per video due to its massive volume of uploads, MLB succeeds in mobilizing its core audience more effectively than any other league.
Average Views per Subscriber: 1,055
Analysis: This metric indicates that MLB fans are hyper-engaged, with the average subscriber consuming content at a rate higher than subscribers of the NFL (884), NHL (842), or NBA (705).
US Major Leagues Avg. Views / Subscriber
The Content Efficiency Award: The NFL
Winner for: Average Views per Video Index
When looking at the efficiency of each piece of content, the NFL and NBA stand apart, ensuring that every upload captures a massive audience.
NFL Efficiency: 254,277 average views per video.
NBA Efficiency: 230,682 average views per video.
NHL Performance: While smaller in scale, the NHL (52,203) maintains more than double the per-video efficiency of the MLB (23,916).
US Major Leagues Avg. Views / Video
Summary of Finalists
League | Total Views | Yearly Views | Uploads | Subscriber Loyalty Index |
NBA | 16.7 Billion | 1.9 Billion | 72,472 | 705 |
NFL | 13.8 Billion | 2.5 Billion | 54,602 | 884 |
MLB | 7.3 Billion | 1.3 Billion | 306,091 | 1,055 |
NHL | 2.1 Billion | 364 Million | 41,433 | 842 |
BuzzMyVideos - 2025 The Business of YouTube Sports Awards - US Major Leagues Edition - Recap & Insights
The 2025 landscape shows two distinct paths to success. The NBA and NFL focus on high-engagement, high-impact videos that maximize views per upload.
Conversely, MLB has mastered the "long-tail" strategy, using massive volume to maintain a loyal, high-frequency audience.
The NHL remains a steady player, maintaining an efficient ratio of views to uploads as it looks to grow its digital footprint.
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A veteran in the industry, Wim Ponnet has witnessed and acted in the key industries of entertainment. A very unique point of view from someone who has been involved in real business transformation, always at cutting edge areas of the entertainment industry. From Yahoo, to Endemol Shine, then investing in sport & tech.
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Paola and Bengü
 Paola Marinone, Founder & CEO BuzzMyVideos |  Bengü Atamer, Co-Founder & Director BuzzMyVideos |
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