Basketball Revenue to Stagnate at $11 Billion Over the Next Five Years
Two years ago, sports hit a massive milestone and became a $100 billion industry. Since then, the market revenue has continued to grow and is expected to hit $118 billion in 2025. And while most major sports, including soccer, American football, and baseball, are fuelling this growth, the basketball market is falling behind.
According to data presented by Betideas.com, the global basketball market is expected to stagnate at around $11 billion over the next five years.
Even Cricket is Growing Faster than Basketball
For years, basketball has been one of the largest revenue streams in the sports industry, following soccer, American football, and baseball. Although this hasn’t changed in 2025, the market has started facing huge challenges holding back its growth.
For a start, basketball has always been less popular than soccer and American football, sports more popular with younger, tech-savvy fans, which has stopped it from growing as fast as these markets. However, the number of basketball fans watching matches on TV and streaming services has also plunged, cutting one of the market`s biggest revenue streams, broadcasting rights. This trend was followed by a drop in ticket and merchandise sales, causing market projections to turn negative.
According to the Statista Market Forecast survey, global basketball revenue will grow by only 0.7% and hit $11.32 billion in 2025, the smallest increase among all major sports. In comparison, American football is expected to grow nearly 11 times faster, or 8%, while baseball and soccer follow with 6% and 4.3% annual growth rates, respectively. Unfortunately, this gap will continue to grow over the next few years.
Statista expects global basketball revenue to grow by only 3% in the next five years, remaining around $11 billion annually. To put that into perspective, that is only one-tenth of the projected 30% growth in American football and one-seventh of the 21% increase expected in the baseball market. The soccer market will grow by 10%, or three times more than basketball, while cricket revenues will rise by 9.5% in the same period.
Media and Merchandise Sectors are Slowing Market Growth
The Statista survey also showed which parts of the basketball market are slowing growth. Although ticket sales are expected to increase by $1 billion and hit roughly $3 billion by 2029, media and merchandise revenue will barely increase.
According to the survey, basketball media revenue will reach $7.3 billion in 2029, just a minor increase from $7.15 billion expected this year. The merchandise sector will see an even smaller growth, with revenue rising from $1.29 billion to $1.37 billion in this period. Even more worrying is that Statista expects only modest viewership growth for basketball in this period. By 2029, the number of basketball fans watching matches will rise by 8% and hit 213 million.
The full story and statistics can be found here: https://betideas.com/blog/2025/05/21/basketball-revenue-to-stagnate-at-11-billion-over-the-next-five-years/
from Jastra Kranjec
Clickout Media Ltd