Fans keep being told that Marvel, Star Wars, and Hollywood are still as big as ever.
The numbers keep saying something else.
Marvel shows on Disney+ are struggling to make a dent. Daredevil: Born Again never charted on Nielsen during Season 1, and Season 2 went 0-for-17 right through its finale. Star Wars has had the same problem, with shows like The Acolyte failing to break through in a major way.
At the box office, Hollywood is not dead, but it is a lot more selective.
Audiences still show up for the right event movie. Barbie. Oppenheimer. Minecraft. Spider-Man. Avatar, though even that franchise is down from its peak. Animated IP can still work, with movies like Lilo & Stitch and Toy Story still having built-in family appeal.
Outside of that, things get shaky fast.
The Mandalorian and Grogu opened soft for Star Wars. Mortal Kombat II bombed so hard it’s already on VOD. Masters of the Universe is bombing even harder. And it took until June for Hollywood to produce a single billion-dollar movie as Super Mario Galaxy finally crossed the mark on its tenth weekend, while Michael is still inching toward it.
So where did the fans go?
Sports.
Sports Are Winning While Hollywood Struggles
Puck News recently pointed to a flood of sports ratings headlines that all tell the same story.
CBS Sports delivered the most-watched final round of the CJ Cup Byron Nelson in 22 years. Colorado Avalanche–Vegas Golden Knights delivered the most-viewed Western Conference Final Game 3 since 2002. ESPN scored its most-watched NCAA Softball Regionals on record. Fox delivered the most-watched UFL game since the league started in 2024. The Indianapolis 500 hit its second-most-watched race since 2012. NASCAR on Prime hit all-time highs.
And it has only gotten bigger since.
The NHL playoffs are averaging their largest audiences on record, with viewership through the Conference Finals up 59% over last year, the highest mark since records began in 1994. The Stanley Cup Final has kept the streak alive: Game 1 between the Golden Knights and Hurricanes was the most-watched Cup Final opener since 2019, and Game 3 pulled over 5 million viewers, the biggest Game 3 audience since 2002.
The NBA Finals are doing the same thing. Game 1 of Knicks–Spurs averaged 16.93 million viewers, the best Finals opener since 2018, up 90% from last year.
Marvel would kill for a 90% year-over-year jump in anything.
And this is before the new NFL season even starts.
Those are “this is where the audience went” stats.
Hollywood keeps trying to convince itself that fans are still locked into the same franchises. Marvel. Star Wars. DC. Legacy sequels. Reboots. Remakes.
Sports does not have that problem.
Sports is live. Sports matters now. Sports gives fans stakes, winners, losers, rivalries, arguments, and moments people actually want to talk about the next morning.
The NFL Hasn’t Even Started Yet
The real monster is still waiting.
The NFL has dramatically expanded its primetime and weekday game inventory, turning the league into a multi-day viewing machine. The league is no longer just Sunday afternoon, Sunday night, and Monday night.
There are Thursday games. Holiday games. Rare Wednesday kickoffs. More standalone primetime slots. Streaming games on platforms like Netflix. Marquee teams are now getting the maximum number of standalone games allowed.
The NFL has basically become appointment viewing across the entire week.
Meanwhile, Hollywood is begging people to leave the house for another $200 million franchise movie that might be on streaming in a few weeks.
The difference is obvious.
A movie can wait. A Disney+ show can wait. A Marvel series can wait forever, judging by the Nielsen charts.
A big NFL game cannot wait.
Fans want to be part of the moment while it is happening. Sports still has that. Hollywood used to have it. Now it only gets it a few times a year.
Fans Are Paying $10,000 For Knicks Tickets
The other part Hollywood should be worried about is attendance.
Look no further than Madison Square Garden this week.
With the Knicks hosting their first NBA Finals games at the Garden since 1999, upper-deck seats — the nosebleeds — were going for $10,000 as of Monday, with courtside listings topping $130,000. The cheapest seats in the building for Game 3 went for over $6,000 on the secondary market, and one pair of courtside seats sold for $1 million at a charity auction.
Ten grand. For the worst seats in the building.
And fans paid it.
It is not just the Knicks. NFL tickets are expected to be among the most expensive ever. NBA, NHL, college football, concerts, and major live events are all expensive.
Yet fans are still paying.
That undercuts one of Hollywood’s favorite excuses. Studios often blame ticket prices, concessions, parking, and the cost of going out for the box office slowdown.
Sure, movies are expensive for families.
But a family of four can see a movie for less than the parking pass at an NFL game, and fans are still choosing the game.
The issue is not only price. It is value.
Fans will spend money when they feel like the experience is worth it. Sports still feels worth it. Too much of Hollywood does not.
And when Hollywood actually delivers an event? The same thing happens. The Odyssey 70mm tickets are hitting $10,000 on eBay a month before the movie even opens. Fans are fighting over tickets, arguing over the casting, and treating a movie release like a concert tour. That is not Marvel. That is not a reboot. That is what an actual event looks like — people care enough to pay, and care enough to argue.
Nobody is arguing about Marvel’s Disney+ shows. Nobody is scalping tickets to them. Even a Disney producer who says she hated Daredevil: Born Again can’t remember why. The shows cannot chart, and they cannot even hold onto their own haters.
The demand never went anywhere. Hollywood just stopped earning it.
Marvel And Star Wars Lost That Event Feeling
Marvel and Star Wars used to own the event feeling.
A new Avengers movie was a cultural moment. A new Star Wars movie was supposed to be a cultural moment. Fans planned around them. Theaters were packed. People talked about spoilers. Social media exploded.
Now Marvel has Disney+ shows that cannot chart. Star Wars has Disney+ shows that come and go without moving the needle. The Mandalorian and Grogu brought Star Wars back to theaters, but the opening was soft compared to where the brand used to be. The new DC also lost half its audience.
Hollywood trained fans to wait. It flooded streaming with content. It turned Marvel and Star Wars into lackluster brands.
Sports went the other way.
Sports made everything bigger. More games. More platforms. More live windows. More gambling tie-ins. More fantasy sports. More social media clips. More debate shows. More reasons to keep watching.
Hollywood gave fans a reason to walk.
Sports gave fans a reason to care.
Younger Audiences Are Choosing Sports
This is the part Hollywood should really worry about.
Sports is capturing younger viewers while Hollywood keeps losing them.
Nielsen has pointed to sports pulling younger audiences into the broadcast ecosystem. The NBA has also leaned heavily into younger viewers, streaming, social clips, and star-driven engagement. College sports, women’s sports, the NFL, UFC, soccer, Formula 1, and even leagues like the UFL are all fighting for the next generation. That doesn’t even include the UFC and WWE.
Hollywood is fighting over the same aging IP.
Marvel is trying to rebuild. Star Wars is trying to recover. DC is rebooting again. Studios keep betting on brands that were built years ago, while sports keeps creating new stars every season.
Fans do not need a cinematic universe to understand a playoff game.
They do not need 30 hours of Disney+ homework to know what is at stake.
They just need a team, a player, a rivalry, and a reason to watch.
Hollywood Has A Hollywood Problem
Hollywood’s problem is not that people stopped liking entertainment.
People love entertainment.
They just seem less interested in the entertainment Hollywood keeps selling them.
The audience did not disappear. It moved.
It moved to the NFL. It moved to college football. It moved to women’s basketball. It moved to NASCAR. It moved to UFC. It moved to live events that still feel urgent.
Marvel and Star Wars can still come back, but pretending everything is fine is not going to fix anything. The Nielsen numbers, the box office results, and the sports ratings all point in the same direction.
Fans are still watching.
They are just watching sports.
