- - Sports in 2025: What we learned from a year of growth

Yahoo Sports StaffDecember 26, 2025 at 6:00 AM

0

(Hayden Hodge/Yahoo Sports)

As the years go by, the sporting world continues to grow and never was that more apparent than in 2025. Whether it was ever increasing viewership — on myriad platforms — for the NFL, expansion in the WNBA and women’s sports in general or controversy related to rapid change, growth ruled the year.

Here’s what we learned in the world of sports in 2025:

Super Bowl LIX drew a record average audience of 127.7 million viewers across across Fox, Fox Deportes, Telemundo, Tubi and the NFL's digital platforms. (Photo by David Buono/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) (Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)NFLWhat we learned in 2025: Nothing can stop the league's runaway viewership train

Somehow, the NFL has become immune to the scattering media landscape.

The league keeps offering more content, and NFL fans keep stuffing themselves with it.

The ratings tell a story. Super Bowl LIX between the Chiefs and Eagles drew an average of 127.7 million viewers — a record — across Fox, Fox Deportes, Telemundo, the streaming site Tubi and the NFL's digital platforms. The NFL provided many ways for fans to watch the game, and viewers found them all.

Monster ratings weren’t limited to the Super Bowl. A Chiefs-Cowboys game on Thanksgiving became the most-watched game in regular-season history with 57.23 million viewers.

With the popularity growing, the NFL continues to expand its reach. There were three games on Christmas this year, as well as games on multiple Fridays and Saturdays as well as Thursdays, Sundays and Mondays. The league scheduled games to compete against the College Football Playoff’s first round, and its free-agency cycle has impeded on the NCAA men's basketball tournament. Offseason events like the NFL Draft and even the schedule release take over the calendar.

Other leagues wish they could continue to grow with no end in sight.

The NFL has dealt with various controversies, from complaints about officiating to betting scandals and off-field issues, and through the complaints people continue to tune in. It’s hard to know what would slow the NFL’s popularity, but we haven’t seen it yet.—Frank Schwab

The Los Angeles Dodgers and Toronto Blue Jays delivered an epic seven-game World Series and appear poised to run baseball for years to come. (Photo by Daniel Shirey/MLB Photos via Getty Images) (Daniel Shirey via Getty Images)MLBWhat we learned in 2025: The Dodgers are a force — and so are the Blue Jays

The Los Angeles Dodgers are a juggernaut of epic proportions. We probably already knew this, but the club’s triumphant World Series title made them MLB’s first back-to-back champs since 2000 and solidified the organization as perhaps the best-run franchise in American sports.

Yes, the money helps, and the Dodgers’ spending power will play a factor in the labor dispute set to dominate the sport next winter. But that doesn’t take anything away from the historically superb performances delivered by the likes of Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto throughout the postseason. Whether the Dodgers can three-peat next fall will be one of the major storylines of the 2026 MLB season.

But the dramatic nature of L.A.’s Fall Classic victory was made possible only because the Toronto Blue Jays pushed them to the absolute brink — two outs away, to be exact. Toronto’s swashbuckling October run galvanized an entire country and elevated the Jays into the league’s top tier. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. — to whom the team gave a 10-year extension in April — is now a household name south of the border and a legend north of it.

So far this winter, the Jays already doubled down on their success, spending big in free agency to land starter Dylan Cease. In a few years time, we might very well look back at 2025 as the year Toronto started to mean business.—Jake Mintz

The Oklahoma City Thunder won their first NBA championship behind youth and depth. (Photo by Matthew Stockman/Getty Images) (Matthew Stockman via Getty Images)NBAWhat we learned in 2025: The Thunder are the blueprint

We learned in the NBA that depth and youth prevail, and the Oklahoma City Thunder have the best of both. They were the youngest team ever to win the league's championship, and they did it on the back of its deepest rotation, led by 20-somethings Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren.

Is Gilgeous-Alexander the new face of the NBA? It is a question often asked in 2025, and he is certainly among a cast of them. There cannot be a face-of-the-league conversation without a discussion of Victor Wembanyama, who has taken the sport by storm. Nikola Jokic also exists as the game's best player, and even still Gilgeous-Alexander shone brightest, capturing both regular-season and Finals MVP honors, enjoying the best season by a guard since Michael Jordan, better than Kobe Bryant.

What became clear in 2025: The league is passing LeBron James by, even as he made a record 21st consecutive All-NBA team. To give you an indication of where he stands: James entered this season at the age of 40 with sciatica. He has, somewhat reluctantly, ceded control of the Los Angeles Lakers to Luka Dončić, whose trade in February was arguably the most shocking (or dumbest) in NBA history. Inside of 10 months it cost Dallas Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison, a household name this year, his job.

A lot happened in 2025. Giannis Antekounmpo's relationship with the Milwaukee Bucks went on the fritz. Damian Lillard, Jayson Tatum and Tyrese Haliburton, all Nos. 0, each tore an Achilles tendon, as "calf strain" became the two scariest words in the sport. And as one member of the old guard, Kevin Durant, joined a contender with the Houston Rockets, another, Chris Paul, was sent home by the L.A. Clippers.

But we do not want to end the year on low notes. It belonged to the Thunder, an all-time great team — one of five ever to win 68 games and the championship — that looks poised to be even better in 2026.—Ben Rohrbach

The WNBA announced three expansion franchises in 2025 — in Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia — to begin play by 2030. (Photo by Erica Denhoff/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) (Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)WNBAWhat we learned in 2025: The NBA is interested again

From viewership to attendance and everything in between, the WNBA’s stock continued to rise in 2025. And the NBA, who founded the league in 1996, made clear it wants to reap the returns.

The biggest news out of the WNBA this year was a bombshell in June that the league would expand to three additional cities, growing its footprint to 18 teams by 2030. The incoming Detroit, Cleveland and Philadelphia franchises are all affiliated with NBA teams, same as the Golden State Valkyries and Toronto Tempo before it. And a slew of already existing franchises.

The Valkyries reached the postseason and averaged a league-high 18,064 fans in their inaugural season as a counterpart to the Warriors. The Indiana Fever came in second, building a city-wide synergy with the Pacers while they attended each other’s games. Teams with NBA partnerships are investing in practice facilities and increased exposure. As collective bargaining negotiations continue, no one is crying foul on the WNBA as an asset.

When the initial interest in professional women’s basketball faded, the NBA took a backseat at times, appearing to hold the WNBA back with a lack of marketing, media rights and overall investment. It’s clear it is locked back into a growth opportunity three decades later.—Cassandra Negley

Edmonton Oilers center Connor McDavid and Colorado Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon will play in Milan when NHL players return to the Winter Games for the first time in 12 years. (Photo by Curtis Comeau/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) (Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)NHLWhat we learned in 2025: The appetite for Olympic hockey has never been higher

NHL players will return to the Winter Olympics hockey tournament for the first time since Sochi 2014. The 12-year absence cost fans the experience of seeing the likes of Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin vie for a gold medal during their prime years. While those two greats are in the twilight of their respective careers, there is a whole other crop of talent ready to now be showcased on the international stage.

Nathan MacKinnon, Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Auston Matthews, Jack Eichel, and Matthew and Brady Tkachuk are a few of the names who will feature in Milan. We were given a taste last February during the 4 Nations Face-off, which saw Canada top the United States in overtime in the championship game. That came after their first meeting in the tournament, which saw three fights break out in the opening nine seconds.

Hockey fans have wanted this for over a decade, and with the NHL and NHLPA agreeing to send players to at least the next two Olympics, the league can show off its stars to a worldwide audience and hope that new moments and new fans are created.—Sean Leahy

Miami's season-opening victory over Notre Dame proved to be quite consequential in the College Football Playoff. (Photo by Chris Arjoon/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) (Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)College footballWhat we learned in 2025: Growing pains dominate the news cycle

The 2025 college football season ended with a lot of coaching movement and, of course, some College Football Playoff controversy.

But the year began with its latest title game ever, as Ohio State was crowned the national champion on Jan. 20 with a win over Notre Dame. Ohio State, who won the first four-team playoff in January of 2015, became the first team to win the 12-team playoff, stringing together four wins after a loss to Michigan in the final week of the 2024 regular season.

Now onto the controversy. Miami beat Notre Dame in Week 1 during an opening weekend that also included Ohio State’s victory over Texas and a 48-14 blowout loss for North Carolina that showed just what trouble lay ahead for Bill Belichick’s team in his first year as a college head coach.

That Week 1 win for the Hurricanes didn’t come into play for playoff purposes until after the season was over. Despite spending the entirety of November ahead of Miami in the CFP selection committee’s top 25, Notre Dame was dropped out of the 12-team field in favor of Miami over a week after each team’s season had ended.

Why? Because Miami and Notre Dame hadn’t been close enough to each other in the rankings for that head-to-head to matter. Whether you want to believe that or not, that’s up to you. But it infuriated Notre Dame and led the Fighting Irish to decline a bowl bid entirely.

Before the committee decided the 12-team field, numerous head coaches changed jobs in one of the most hectic coaching carousels in years. Lane Kiffin ditched a playoff-bound Ole Miss in favor of LSU after the Tigers fired Brian Kelly, Penn State took over 50 days to hire Iowa State’s Matt Campbell after firing James Franklin, and two longtime fixtures won’t be around in 2026. One, Oklahoma State’s Mike Gundy, was fired during the season. Another, Utah’s Kyle Whittingham, stepped down on his own at the end of the season.—Nick Bromberg

In his first stint heading a national team, Mauricio Pochettino looks to have revitalized the USMNT heading into a World Cup on home soil. (Photo by Mark Smith/ISI Photos/USSF/Getty Images) (Mark Smith/ISI Photos/USSF via Getty Images)SoccerWhat we learned in 2025: Mauricio Pochettino is on to something

Last spring, following a dismal performance by his full-strength U.S. national team at the CONCACAF Nations League finals in the Los Angeles area, Mauricio Pochettino recognized he had an enormous amount of work to do before returning to SoFi Stadium for the 2026 World Cup opener.

In stages, through the summer and fall, things began to fall into place. Pochettino reinforced the importance of team culture, getting players to take greater pride in representing the U.S. crest. He provided opportunity to young players — a shot across the bow of complacent veterans. He introduced fresh tactics.

By the end of the year, with a mix of young and old, the Americans had built a five-game unbeaten streak against teams headed to the World Cup. It wasn’t just the results; it was the harmony and confidence with which they played.

Indeed, Pochettino had positioned his team well for the run-up to soccer’s premier competition next summer.—Steven Goff

In the NIL era, Cinderella NCAA tournament runs like the one Saint Peter's embarked upon in 2022 are far less common. (Photo by Tim Nwachukwu/Getty Images) (Tim Nwachukwu via Getty Images)Men’s college basketballWhat we learned in 2025: Cinderella is fading away

This is not the era to pick too many audacious early-round NCAA tournament upsets. Between the skyrocketing NIL market and the elimination of transfer restrictions, talent has concentrated at the top of men's college basketball. As a result, the gap between deep-pocketed power-conference programs and everyone else is rapidly widening.

Last March, for the first time since the NCAA tournament expanded to 32 teams in 1975, every school that advanced to the Sweet 16 hailed from a power conference. The lone surviving double-digit seed was an Arkansas team coached by John Calipari and assembled thanks to one of the sport's largest NIL war chests.

For days, debate raged over whether the absence of the usual March magic was a one-year aberration or, as former Duke star and current ESPN analyst Jay Williams argued, “the death of mid-major Cinderella runs." It's too soon to conclusively answer that question, but the start of the new season has provided some discouraging data.

Besides Gonzaga, not a single team from outside college basketball’s power conferences has cracked the AP Top 25 so far this season. There are no nationally relevant mid-majors, no Butlers, Loyola Chicagos or Wichita States. There were 378 matchups this November between high-majors and non-Gonzaga teams from other conferences. The so-called little guy won only 22 of them, the lowest rate in at least a decade.—Jeff Eisenberg

Paige Bueckers closed a decorated collegiate career by leading UConn to yet another national championship. (Photo by Thien-An Truong/ISI Photos/Getty Images) (Thien-An Truong/ISI Photos via Getty Images)Women’s college basketballWhat we learned in 2025: UConn is inevitable

Death, taxes and UConn basketball. The Huskies ensured that any talk of the powerhouse’s collapse was premature, snapping their nine-year title drought with a dominating run through the NCAA tournament. It was the first and only title for Paige Bueckers, a line in the bio that will require context as the Huskies continue to stack championships and icons. Because the irony is Bueckers and UConn’s victory became something of a heartwarming story rather than another entry in the wicked dynasty that could never lose.

That was all the way back in April. As the calendar turns, the Huskies remain the No. 1 team in the country with a second consecutive projected WNBA lottery pick (Azzi Fudd) and, as always, a National Player of the Year contender (Sarah Strong). A repeat championship could be on the horizon. Their last repeat came in 2016, completing four in four years.

UConn’s return to the final confetti celebration showed the basketball world the Huskies are still one of the game’s great programs three decades after winning their first national title in 1995. While Southern Cal faded, Tennessee fell off for a while and Notre Dame actively evaporates, UConn and head coach Geno Auriemma remain inevitable.—Cassandra Negley

With his triumphs at both the PGA Championship and 153rd Open, Scottie Scheffler is in position to complete the career Grand Slam. (Photo By Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile via Getty Images) (Ramsey Cardy via Getty Images)GolfWhat we learned in 2025: Scottie Scheffler still reigns supreme

This was the year the Golf Gods decided to reward humility and punish arrogance. As Rory McIlroy demonstrated on a memorable Sunday in Augusta, you can indeed achieve your life’s dream and your heart’s desire … but you’re going to go through hell to get there.

Fourteen years after his collapse in the Augusta pines, and 11 years since he’d won his last major, McIlroy at last closed the deal at the Masters, claiming both a green jacket and the career grand slam in one of the most agonizing, exultant final rounds in major history. (McIlroy’s arcing shot around a tree, over water and straight at the pin on No. 15 might be the shot of the century.)

We also learned it’s best to bet on Scottie Scheffler, always. He won two more majors, putting himself in position for a career grand slam of his own. We saw glory come from unexpected corners — Tommy Fleetwood winning his first PGA Tour event, journeyman J.J. Spaun rolling a 64-foot birdie putt to claim the U.S. Open, and a record 29 different winners capturing LPGA events.

We learned conclusively that not everybody understands how to act at a golf course. The only part of the Ryder Cup uglier than the U.S.’s performance in the first two days was the behavior of the Bethpage gallery.

And we learned that whatever golf looks like in 2026 — More indoor simulator golf! More documentaries! More YouTube creator golf! — it almost certainly won’t include a reunification. The PGA Tour and LIV Golf seem as far apart as ever, and both sides seem OK with that.

Scores settled, slates cleaned. The 2025 season will resonate longer than most in golf history.—Jay Busbee

Italy's Jannik Sinner and Spain's Carlos Alcaraz continued to own the Grand Slam scene in 2025. (Photo by Tim Clayton/Getty Images) (Tim Clayton via Getty Images)TennisWhat we learned in 2025: Top stars are as strong as they've ever been

With Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz splitting the men’s Grand Slam titles in 2025 — just as they did in 2024 — the duopoly ruling men’s tennis is stronger than ever. In fact, only Novak Djokovic’s upset of Alcaraz at the Australian Open prevented them meeting in the finals of all four majors, which has never happened in a calendar year.

How dominant have those two been? At the end of the season, the gap between No. 2 Sinner and No. 3 Alexander Zverev in the ATP rankings was 6,340 points. The gap between No. 3 and No. 50 Reilly Opelka was just 4,134 points.

We also learned that the next man to break up their stranglehold is probably not a current member of the top 10, particularly with 38-year-old Djokovic hitting the wall physically late in the majors. (It’s still remarkable he made the semifinals of all four this year). Brazil’s Joao Fonseca, who moved up from No. 113 to No. 24 at age 19, showed he might have the goods to challenge the top two over the next couple years.

The biggest revelation on the women’s side was that four-time French Open champion Iga Świątek can play on grass. Her surprise Wimbledon title — after not winning the French this year — solidifies her among the all-time greats with six majors and counting at age 24.

The best story of 2025, though, was Amanda Anisimova. After taking nearly a year off the tour to deal with burnout and mental health issues, the hard-hitting American broke through to the Wimbledon final, where Świątek beat her 6-0, 6-0. Several weeks later, Anisimova turned the tables at the US Open and beat Świątek en route to another Slam final, where she lost to Aryna Sabalenka. Now ranked No. 4, she is firmly planted among the game’s elite.—Dan Wolken

Denny Hamlin lost the NASCAR Cup Series championship in a heartbreaker at Phoenix, but weeks later scored a key settlement in a court case against the governing body. (Photo by James Gilbert/Getty Images) (James Gilbert via Getty Images)NASCARWhat we learned in 2025: Denny Hamlin beat NASCAR despite losing the title

The 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season ended with a disappointed Denny Hamlin. The year ended with a very happy Hamlin.

Hamlin was set to capture his first Cup Series title in the waning laps of the winner-take-all season finale at Phoenix. But a late tire problem for fellow title contender William Byron caused a caution with two laps to go and a four-tire pit stop left Hamlin with too much ground to make up on the ensuing two-lap sprint to the finish.

Kyle Larson, meanwhile, took just two tires on his final pit stop. Larson, who hadn't sniffed the lead all day, went on to finish third and win his second Cup Series title. Hamlin, who led 208 of the race's 319 laps, finished sixth.

It was yet another heartbreaking moment for Hamlin, who is a surefire NASCAR Hall of Famer despite not (yet) winning a NASCAR Cup Series title. Hamlin won six races in his age-44 season and is now tied for 10th on NASCAR's all-time wins list with Kevin Harvick.

Roughly six weeks after that title race, Hamlin's 23XI Racing team was victorious in its legal battle with NASCAR. 23XI, the team Hamlin co-owns with Michael Jordan, banded together with Front Row Motorsports to sue NASCAR over the terms of the sanctioning body's charter agreement.

As the December trial for the lawsuit went into its second week, settlement talks got serious. Was it because NASCAR knew that it was going to lose? The settlement was a clear win for 23XI and Front Row. NASCAR relented on its refusal to grant teams permanent charters — NASCAR's version of franchising — and the teams also received monetary damages.

After the trial, all parties involved put on a happy face and said they were excited for the future of NASCAR. Will that future include those currently at the top of NASCAR's executive ladder?—Nick Bromberg

MMA fans were clamoring for Jon Jones to face Tom Aspinall in 2025, but it wasn't to be. (Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images) (Sarah Stier via Getty Images)MMAWhat we learned in 2025: The biggest fights are just pipe dreams

This past year we came to understand that MMA has a long way to go in terms of determining — and assessing — fouls. We saw a good many fight-changing eye-pokes (Tom Aspinall’s title defense against Ciryl Gane), groin shot controversies (Kevin Holland against Mike Malott) and blatant fence grabs in which no points were taken away, thus making the issue of consequential actions louder than ever.

If a foul is a foul, then it needs to be treated as a foul, regardless of intent. And if automatically deducting a point is too great a penalty to assess in the 10-point must system — the scoring system MMA uses in judging fights, adopted from boxing — then the system itself needs to be examined to accommodate the enforcement of those penalties.

In other words, the issue feels destined to grow far bigger before anything happens.

We also learned the American champion is an endangered species in MMA. Of the 11 total weight classes between the men’s and women’s ranks in the UFC, only two current titleholders are American — Kayla Harrison (women’s bantamweight) and Joshua Van (flyweight from Houston, and even he was born in Myanmar). In the PFL, it’s the same thing. Only light heavyweight Corey Anderson holds a title coming out of 2025. If MMA's not the fastest growing sport in the world, it’s the worldliest.

And next year, when the UFC holds a special event at the White House, it’s a near certainty that if there's an American in a title fight, he/she will be the challenger.

Which ties into the biggest thing we learned in 2025, given that so many people were hoping to see Alex Pereira vs. Jon Jones in a seemingly ill-fated bout at the White House event. Much as we love to try and will them into existence, the biggest fights are pipe dreams. Coming into the year the greatest fights the UFC could make would’ve been Jones and Tom Aspinall for the heavyweight title, and Ilia Topuria vs. Islam Makhachev in a superfight.

Neither happened. Rather than face Aspinall to unify the heavyweight title, Jones “retired,” thus giving us the consolation prize of Aspinall vs. Gane. Just as Topuria jumped to lightweight to challenge Makhachev, Makhachev jumped ship to welterweight to win a title in a second weight class. Dress the Christmas trees with big shiny blue balls because the fights we most wanted most never came to be.—Chuck Mindenhall

Despite a deep bench of strong fighters, Terence Crawford's shocking retirement after defeating Canelo Álvarez left no clear American heir in boxing. (Photo by Steve Marcus/Getty Images) (Steve Marcus via Getty Images)BoxingWhat we learned in 2025: America is no longer boxing’s engine

One of the big takeaways in boxing this year isn’t that the sport is broken, because it’s not. It’s that traditionally its most influential nation, the United States, has surrendered power to Saudi Arabia and Japan.

Broadcast valuations in this country are at an all-time low. Top Rank’s last event on ESPN was in July and it's been homeless ever since. One Uncrowned source said Starz offered Top Rank an annual deal of $12 million for 12 events, which pales in comparison to the $7.7 billion the UFC just received from Paramount.

The big deals aren’t there anymore and, per sources, it’s because the product does not add up to prices American networks were previously paying.

One man who hasn’t struggled to sign deals, though, is Jake Paul, who ended 2025 boxing Anthony Joshua on Netflix — the same platform many of his Most Valuable Promotions (MVP) fighters have boxed on at least once this year. Between MVP, and the looming presence of Zuffa Boxing, the power structure in the United States is being reshaped into an entirely different image, as traditional promoters seem to get phased out.

To make matters worse, Terence Crawford’s sudden retirement removed the No. 1 fighter from the sport and left no clear American heir. The U.S. still produces extraordinary fighters, as Jesse "Bam" Rodriguez, Shakur Stevenson, David Benavidez and Devin Haney are rising on pound-for-pound lists. But it’s not just a question of talent pool. Momentum and investment is something the sport kept getting wrong in 2025.

It’s not all bad, though. Saudi Arabia remains a magnet for the majority of the world’s big bouts, and then there are Japan’s generational talents Junto Nakatani, Naoya Inoue and Kenshiro Teraji, who have all dominated globally, and increasingly maneuvered themselves into the sport’s most meaningful moments.

The lesson of 2025 isn’t that boxing is broken, but that America is no longer the sport’s biggest engine. It’s just one market among many now and has to earn its influence back. If it ever can.—Alan Dawson

Original Article on Source

Source: “AOL Sports”