World Cup, NBA Finals Lift Broadcast Viewership to 19.8% in June

The World Cup and NBA Finals drove a 118% increase in broadcast viewing in June, lifting the category to a 19.8% share of TV time for the month — its first increase during the period since the launch of Nielsen’s Gauge report in 2021.

Meanwhile, cable saw a 2% decrease in viewing to a total share of 19.5%, driven by the absence of the NBA and NHL playoffs, which led to a 10% monthly decline in cable sports viewership. As for streaming, the category made up 48.5% of TV viewing, up about 3% compared to May but just below the 3.1% increase for total TV usage.

When looking by distributor, Fox and NBCUniversal benefited from being the broadcast and streaming homes of the FIFA World Cup, which saw over 84 billion minutes viewed combined across their properties and were the only distributors to see viewing increases in the Media Distributor Gauge during the month.

But neither company saw enough of a boost to knock industry leaders YouTube and Disney off their perch, who finished the month with 13.8% and 9.6% of TV viewership, respectively. Fox also remains behind Netflix, which came in fourth in the ranking by distributor and second in the ranking by streaming platform with a share of 7.9%.

NBCU and Versant finished third with a combined 9.1% share of TV viewing for the month, with the former accounting for 7% and the latter accounting for 2.1% of the total. Peacock accounted for 2.3% of that total, its second-best share of TV to date behind February 2026.

Telemundo served as the exclusive home to all Spanish-language World Cup coverage, which drove a 143% monthly viewing increase to its broadcast affiliates in June. On days where Peacock aired that coverage, it saw a 60% increase in audience engagement on the platform compared to days when it didn’t. Viewing from Hispanic audiences also increased nearly 200% compared to the prior month. 

In addition to the World Cup, Peacock saw a 34% increase from “Love Island USA,” which generated 6.8 billion minutes and was the month’s most-streamed title.

Meanwhile, World Cup boosted Fox affiliate viewing by 73% and Fox Sports 1 viewing by 232%, moving it up to the No. 5 ranking with 7.4% of total TV watch-time. In addition, Tubi accounted for 2.2% of Fox’s total viewership for the month.

Disney’s total viewership for the month included 4.6% from its streaming services Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+.

The company’s share was boosted by ABC’s coverage of the five-game NBA Finals showdown between the San Antonio Spurs and eventual champion New York Knicks helped drive a 15% viewing bump for ABC affiliates in June. Each game of the series was the most-viewed broadcast telecast on days played, and Games 3, 4 and 5 were the most watched telecasts over the June interval with more than 20 million viewers a piece. 

Rounding out the rest of the list was Paramount with 6.8% of viewing, which included 2.3% from its streaming platforms; Warner Bros. Discovery with 5.3%, including 1.4% from its streaming platforms; Amazon with 4.3%; The Roku Channel with 3%; Scripps with 1.6%, Wiegel Broadcasting with 1.4%, A&E Networks with 0.9%, Hallmark with 0.8% and AMC Networks with 0.6%.