Will LeBron James Retire in 2025? 7 Predictions for the Next Year of Sports Media
The sports media landscape is an object in motion yet to encounter an external force. At any given moment, a new media rights deal can be formalized. Congratulations, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver! A significant television personality could be at odds with a longtime executive in the next moment. Hey, Pat McAfee and Norby Williamson! Or, a former athlete turned media mogul could conduct an interview that shakes the timeline. Thanks, Katt Williams and Shannon Sharpe.
This year, the sports media industry nearly produced as many headlines as the sports themselves, and 2025 will be no different. DraftKings and FanDuel will continue to enter the industry by building sports programming networks. Apple TV+ and Prime Video will continue to hang around as entities with seemingly limitless pockets capable of dominating this landscape. As the new year kicks off, here are seven predictions for the next year in sports media.
1. Mr. First Take Enters the Disney-Verse
In 2025, we predict that Stephen A. Smith will enter the Disney-verse. The First Take host is reportedly closing in on a new deal with Disney that would give him access to portions of the company beyond ESPN. Early reports suggest the deal would function similarly to a “first-look” deal that would give Disney a first pass at projects backed by the reporter-turned-media mogul. Given that Smith has expressed interest in entering late-night television and appears frequently on political talk shows, this isn’t all that surprising. As the new year kicks off, expect to see Smith on ESPN’s First Take and other familiar places, but don’t be surprised if he spearheads an original series on ABC or appears on the network’s news programs.
2. College Football Playoffs: The More, the Merrier
You get a playoff spot! You get a playoff spot! Everyone gets playoff spots! This isn’t a prediction as much as it is a reminder. After next season, key college football stakeholders will review the agreed-upon format for the College Football Playoffs. While expansion isn’t a foregone conclusion, it is the most likely outcome. As recently as March, ESPN’s Pete Thamel and Heather Dinich reported that “an expected 14-team playoff” format will be formally announced in late 2025 or early 2026 and instituted for the 2026-2027 season. Great! Now, rabid fans can debate whether Iowa State, Colorado, and BYU deserve the final playoff spot instead of Miami, Alabama, South Carolina, and Ole Miss: same routine, different teams.
3. The Future (of Boxing) Will Be Streamed
Ding, ding! Top Rank, the lead promoter for boxing champions like Naoya Inoue and Teofimo Lopez, is currently engaged in a broadcasting partnership with ESPN that will reportedly end in August 2025. While it doesn’t appear that ESPN will back out of the boxing business entirely, it seems that they will take a small step back as Top Rank searches for additional broadcasting partners. Other broadcasting or streaming options include Prime Video. In 2024, Prime Video worked with Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) to put together five shows featuring stars like Gervonta “Tank” Davis and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. In 2025, PBC’s Stephen Espnioza says the promotion will be “busier” than it was in 2024.
Still, the question remains: Will Top Rank be attracted to Prime Video because of their work with PBC? At the moment, it appears more likely that Top Rank would explore a future with DAZN, a popular streaming platform home to fights featuring boxers from several major promotions, including Matchroom and Queensberry. If DAZN were to land a significant deal with Top Rank, it would push the streaming platform over the top and cement its place as the true home of boxing globally. Less than a decade after HBO and Showtime exited the boxing business, who knew the future would be streamed, not televised?
4. How the NFL Stole Christmas
For years, casual NBA fans have identified Christmas as the unofficial start of the regular season. As families unwrap presents and wood burns inside the fireplace, televisions across the country display the opening tip-off at Madison Square Garden as the New York Knicks challenge an Eastern Conference foe. Then, ESPN transitions into broadcasts of games featuring the league’s best and brightest stars like LeBron James, Stephen Curry, and Giannis Antetokounmpo. While the NBA isn’t altering a formula that has worked for years and years, the NFL is adjusting its Christmas slate.
Over the last few years, the NFL has moved more games to Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Just last year, the CBS broadcast of the Raiders’ six-point victory against the Chiefs on Christmas drew nearly six times as many viewers as the highest-rated NBA broadcast on the holiday. This year, the strategy crescendoed as the league’s premier stars, Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce, challenged one of the league’s premier franchises, the Pittsburgh Steelers, on Netflix on Christmas. Netflix broadcast a live Beyoncé concert with two-time NFL MVP Lamar Jackson and the Baltimore Ravens battling C.J. Stroud‘s Houston Texans in the background. To top it all off, the first overall pick in last year’s draft, Caleb Williams, led the Bears when the Seattle Seahawks came to town. Putting many of the league’s top stars on the world’s biggest streaming platforms on Christmas seems like an apparent attempt to own the holiday’s television/streaming schedule. And did I mention, there was a Beyoncé concert! OK, I did? Well, the message the NFL is sending the NBA is clear. Find a new holiday.
5. NBA Bounces Back
If you’ve read anything from Awful Announcing, Front Office Sports, or Sports Business Journal within the last month, you already know that NBA viewership is down nearly 30 percent through November 21. While it’s hard to say if those numbers will rebound in the coming weeks and months of the current season, it’s safe to say that those viewership numbers will improve significantly next season.
First and foremost, expect viewers to tune in early on for the novelty or, better yet, the nostalgia of the new set of broadcast partners. Next season, the NBA will return to NBC with its classic theme song, ancillary programming, and broadcast team. In addition, Inside The NBA will debut on ESPN while Prime Video gets its first crack at broadcasting NBA showdowns. Above all else, next season will draw in more viewers because it could very well be the end of an era. More specifically, ESPN’s Shams Charania has hinted that next season will be the last for LeBron James. If so, every game he plays down the stretch in the regular season and postseason will be must-see television. Also, it could spark more intrigue into the current slate of professional and collegiate stars as the mass media machine searches for the “next LeBron” as it did after Michael Jordan retired.
6. R.I.P. Access Sports Journalism
Nick Castellanos has made his name in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a two-time all-star, Silver Slugger Award recipient, and 2021 All-MLB Second Team member. As a key component of the Philadelphia Phillies’ offensive attack, not much he does on the field goes unnoticed, but his impact in the world of sports media may fly under the radar. In October, MLB Fits Founder Alex Tantum interviewed Castellanos, and he revealed that ESPN was interested in writing a story about him. However, he turned down the opportunity because they “wouldn’t give [him] editorial rights of the story to make sure that [he] liked it before it came out.”
While Castellanos isn’t the first, nor will he be the last to turn down a story, his reasoning for doing so represents a growing trend within sports and entertainment. Athletes and entertainers can pivot to interviews with streamers or conversations with podcasters rather than doing traditional press. As we go further down this road, it could spell trouble for those who rely on or enjoy stories written and published due to access to athletes. The alternative would be to have athletes gain editorial control, shifting the press to function more as public relations.
7. The Jake Paul Show Will Be Renewed for Another Season
No, Jake Paul isn’t going anywhere. While his latest foray into boxing resulted in the sideshow that was his eight-round dance with former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson, he has been incredibly successful because people keep watching him when he engages in bizarre bouts. Many keep calling for him to fight “real” boxers (whatever that means), but those events typically draw lower viewership numbers and reportedly generate lower payouts for himself and his imprint, Most Valuable Promotions.
Netflix eagerly and proudly says more than 100 million viewers tuned into Tyson-Paul, but the viewership numbers for his fights against “real” boxers like Ryan Bourland and Andre August are difficult to find. While it’s hard to see Paul getting in the ring with another retired heavyweight champion, expect to see him in the ring for a potential rematch with Tommy Fury, a showdown with KSI, or even getting a shot at a championship belt created by the World Boxing Council (WBC).
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