While the NFL remains the most popular sport in terms of TV ratings, the NBA is poised for future success. The NBA has embraced social media and is popular on newer platforms such as Vine/Snapchat. With more access to highlights and videos, fans are able to share NBA content across a variety of platforms that other leagues don't allow.

Median Viewer Age Among NBA Fans Holding Strong

The NBA has done a great job attracting younger fans while the median viewer age of MLB and NFL games has increased. The NBA has been quick to jump on new platforms to target younger generations. The rapidly rising age of MLB's viewers is part of the reason why baseball has tried to increase the pace of play this year.

Twitter Followers and Youtube Subscribers

The NBA has a dominant presence on YouTube with over 6 million subscribers and 17,578 videos. The NFL with only 282 videos has not focused their attention on the video sharing community. The MLB has posted an impressive 84,666 videos, but only has a small following. On Twitter, the NBA has the largest following and the most tweets with 101k.

Facebook Followers Among Top 100 Paid Athletes

As you've seen the league does a better job targeting a younger audience, but how about the players? The 18 NBA players in the top 100 paid athletes, compiled by Forbes, combined to have over a 150 million followers on Facebook. The 20 MLB and 13 NFL players in the top 100 combined don't even crack 25 million followers.

The NBA Consumed in 6 Seconds or Less

Vine, a social media platform perfect for sharing short video clips and highlights, has more NBA search results/user uploads than either the MLB or NFL. The official NBA account has 968.5k followers compared to 314.6k (NFL) and 234.5k (MLB).