June has been a thrilling month for NBA fans. The 2025 league finals, which began on June 5, took all seven games to complete, ending with the Oklahoma Thunder’s win over the Indiana Pacers on June 22. As the world tuned in to watch the games, presented by ABC and YouTube TV, fans, journalists, and commentators alike discussed the 2025 NBA Finals in the media and online. We used our social listening and analytics solution to measure the buzz, determine which team really won the tournament, and see how the games boosted discussion about YouTube TV.
How big was the 2025 NBA Finals social media and news coverage?
From Game 1 on June 5 to Game 7 on June 22, there were over 2.5 million social media, news, broadcast, and podcast mentions. Understandably, the biggest day for conversation was the final day of the series, peaking at about 534,000 mentions.
The phrase “game thread,” used on Reddit to denote general discussions after each game, was the top keyword in the conversation. (More on that below.) Meanwhile, Tyrese Haliburton emerged as the most discussed person, with about 159,000 mentions. The Pacers point guard, who scored a game-winning point in the last .3 seconds of Game 1, sustained an injury in the first quarter of Game 7. His absence from the rest of the game was a much-discussed factor in the Pacers’ loss.
Which social platforms led NBA Finals discussions in 2025?
Throughout the NBA Finals, spikes in discussion were fueled by X, which saw about 1.61 million mentions, followed by Reddit, which saw about 426,000 mentions.
Of those Reddit mentions, more than half came from the r/nba community where threads discussing each game generated tens of thousands of engagement actions. In fact, one thread discussing Game 7 got so many comments that the group moderators had to start a new one to accommodate the bustling discussion.
Notably, although Facebook wasn’t the top site for Finals discussions, ESPN’s June 22 post on the platform generated the most engagement overall. The post, featuring Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, had about 244,000 reactions, 8,800 comments, and 23,000 shares as of June 23. And it likely got the attention it did due to Gilgeous-Alexander’s historic run. As ESPN reported, he joined the legendary Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in being the only NBA players to ever win the season Most Valuable Player (MVP), Finals MVP, and a scoring title before their 27th birthday.
Which countries talked about the NBA Finals the most?
No surprise that the United States was the site of most of the NBA Finals discussion, with Canada a distant second. Interestingly, Brazil was the country that generated the third most mentions about the tournament. According to the NBA, Brazil is home to more than 51 million NBA fans. In recent years, the league has been fostering new opportunities to engage with them via in-person activations and localized social channels, including ones on YouTube, X, and Instagram that collectively have over 5.2 million followers.
Who was the most talked-about team during the 2025 NBA Finals?
Though the Thunder won the NBA Finals on the court, the Pacers won in terms of discussion volume. Over the course of the games, the Indiana team generated about 165,000 more mentions than their Oklahoma opponents.
This was due to the fact that social media users and media outlets mentioned the Pacers more than the Thunder for five out of the seven total games. The notable outliers were June 16 for Game 5, when the Thunder secured a crucial win and gained a 3-2 lead in the series, as well as the final game on June 22, which the Oklahoma team won.
How did the 2025 NBA Finals impact YouTube TV’s visibility?
Successful livestream sports events are key priorities for streamers as they battle one another for online presence. As in previous years, this year NBA fans could stream the Finals live on YouTube TV. This resulted in a huge boost of visibility for the platform.
YouTube TV social media mentions increased by 44% over the 17-day period of Finals compared to the prior 17 days.
For news and broadcast mentions, that increase was a staggering 395%.
Across all sources, mentions of YouTube TV saw a 30% increase in reach and an 86% increase in engagement during the NBA Finals, highlighting just how critical live sports have become in the battle between streamers.
Learn more about the current state of streaming in our recent consumer insights report on the industry.
2025 NBA Finals takeaways for marketers
Don’t count Facebook out. After X, Reddit generated the highest volume of NBA Finals mentions, but Facebook generated the most engagement. Marketers looking to get a piece of mainstream sports hype should think twice before overlooking these platforms, especially Facebook.
International fan bases are thriving. Many national sports leagues and teams have untapped opportunities to connect with fans living outside of their regions. Monitoring online buzz around big sports events is the best way to uncover where those fan bases are.
Livestream sports boost streamers. Popular sports events migrating to streaming platforms is only just beginning. As sports fans turn their game day attention online, brands that can effectively leverage digital discussions in real-time will be best positioned as more leagues shift to streaming platforms.
