With this year’s NBA Finals becoming one of the most-watched and most talked-about Finals in decades, we wanted to see how that popularity translated to Instagram.

So we used Booking Agent Info’s sports database to track the Instagram followings of players on the Knicks and Spurs from May 22 to June 12.

The result: players on both teams gained major audience, but San Antonio saw the bigger Finals bump.

Spurs players: +1,421,438 followers
Knicks players: +911,731 followers

The attention matched the moment. Game 1 was the most-watched Finals Game 1 since 2018. Game 3 was the most-watched Finals Game 3 since 1998. Through four games, the series was averaging 19.6M viewers — the most-watched Finals through four games since 1998.

Game 4 also became the most viral NBA game ever, generating 3B+ social media views, while the Knicks completed the largest comeback in NBA Finals history after erasing a 29-point deficit.

That kind of stage changes more than the series. It changes audience size, athlete visibility, and brand value.