Memes Reign Supreme for NFL Fans on Social Video
NFL Memes retained its lead over the NFL with 49.4 million unique U.S. viewers in February 2025.
Turns out, even during what may be arguably the NFL's most attention-filled month is no match for laughs. New data from Tubular Labs shows that despite impressive year-over-year increases in viewership, the NFL was edged out by NFL memes as top sports creator for the month of February.
According to Tubular's Audience Rating data measuring across YouTube and Facebook:
- Even though the NFL saw a 42% year-over-year increase in domestic unique viewers across YouTube and Facebook, it was still the No. 2 sports creator in February.
- NFL Memes retained its lead over the NFL with 49.4 million unique U.S. viewers vs. the NFL’s 48.3 million. That margin’s slimmed considerably vs. January 2025, when NFL Memes had nearly double the reach of the league. But, it still shows a completely shifted dynamic in how fans consume football content.
Looking closer, nearly every NFL Memes video is short format, running 30 seconds or less, and all on Facebook.
- In February, they were Super Bowl-heavy, leaning into pop culture content around the game related to Kendrick Lamar and Taylor Swift (the two primary topics of the channel’s top videos).
- The NFL’s own channel had significantly more uploads across both YouTube and Facebook, but was more focused on the on-field action than NFL Memes were.
The differences also come from audience makeup on the month:
- For NFL Memes, 21% of unique U.S. viewers were women, vs. 17% for the NFL.
- But interestingly, a larger share of the NFL’s audience (20%) is in the 13-to-24 age range than NFL Memes’ is (6%). That could represent a shift in how older audiences – especially on Facebook – are consuming content in a way that’s instructive for the NFL and other leagues to better tailor toward changing viewer behaviors.
