If 75% of Sports Fans Would Follow Their Favorite Sport to Streaming if It Left TV, Why Are Games Still on Broadcast, Cable?
The number jumps to 80% among NFL fans, showing why TV providers are so nervous about the new JV sports streamer from Disney, Fox and WBD.
There are more and more sports streaming options available every day. The NBA is hoping to sell a whole package of games exclusively to a streaming service in its next broadcast deal, and ESPN is attempting to join forces with Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery to form a streaming platform that would combine the sports rights of all three companies. While sports leagues are not likely to depart linear TV any time soon, new data from Hub Research shows that when they do, they’ll find an eager audience waiting for them on streaming.
- Hub’s numbers show that 75% of fans would sign up for a streaming service offering their favorite sport if it were no longer on TV.
- Sports content can also lead to a halo effect of fans watching shows they see advertised during sports events.
- The data shows what a quandary some streamers find themselves in when it comes to streaming live sports.
Hub’s data shows just how passionate sports fans are about their favorite teams, leagues, and events. Its latest survey indicates that content about the respondent’s favorite sport is massively important to audiences; 79% of survey participants said content focusing on their favorite sport was “somewhat” or “much more” important than the other things they liked to watch. This obviously includes the games and matches themselves, but also applies to pre and post-game shows, studio analysis, docuseries, and more.
Hub’s data also shows that fans are more than willing to follow their favorite sports off of linear TV. At a rate of 75%, respondents to the survey said that they would be “somewhat” or “very likely” to adopt a new streaming service if their favorite sport was eventually offered on it and no longer available on traditional TV channels. That should give leagues plenty of confidence in moving portions of their annual schedule to streaming platforms. While nearly every league is embracing streaming to varying degrees, there are still significant financial and audience benefits to broadcast and cable, but there is no doubt that streaming will hold an increasingly important role in every new sports rights deal moving forward.
The survey also breaks down which sports are most likely to see their fans sign up for a new streaming subscription to watch their favorite teams and leagues. English Premier League soccer (which streams matches on Peacock in the United States) leads all sports, with 82% of self-proclaimed avid fans saying that they’d watch on a streaming service if the sport was no longer available on TV. The NBA also reaches this 82% number, and the NFL isn’t far behind at 80%. NFL fans were none too happy about the Chiefs and Dolphins Wild Card game on Jan. 13 that was only available on Peacock, but the game still averaged 23 million viewers during its broadcast.
It’s also apparent that placing more sports on streaming will have a halo effect on other titles available within streaming services. Hub’s data shows that more than 70% of respondents watch a show or movie they see advertised while watching sports at least occasionally. Sixty-five percent say they stay on the same channel as the sports game in question to watch a show they weren’t necessarily planning to watch otherwise “occasionally,” “often,” or “very often.”
So, Why Are Sports Still on Regular TV?
The data from Hub paints a clear picture of passionate sports fanbases that are perfectly willing to watch their favorite teams somewhere other than a broadcast or cable channel and will likely enjoy other titles available on whichever streaming platform ends up hosting their most beloved sports. So why are leagues so hesitant to leave TV, and why are streamers being so deliberate in building their sports inventories?
For both leagues and streamers, the answer is money. For decades, sports leagues were able to charge exorbitant amounts for their rights, and cable distributors were able to pay because subscribers who did not watch sports channels still paid to receive them. Despite the impacts of cord cutting on cable subscriber totals, leagues still see that broadcast and cable channels can provide more revenue through advertising and subscriber money than streamers can.
Indeed, most streaming services are still trying to become profitable. Netflix is the only streamer that turns a regular profit, and it has just barely dipped its toes into the sports streaming world; Netflix streamed its first live sports event, a golf tournament, last November. The extreme cost of live sports rights means that streaming services simply cannot afford to bid on rights packages that give them most or all of a league’s games in a given year.
Tech companies like Apple can afford to do so, and that company took a big risk by creating a streaming platform called MLS Season Pass to house every Major League Soccer game until 2033. Leagues and streaming competitors would love to know what the viewership numbers for Apple’s MLS streaming service, but Apple is notoriously unwilling to share that type of data with the public, much less with competitors.
So while Hub’s data makes it clear that there is an eager sports streaming audience out there, fans should not expect an immediate shift to streaming for any of the top leagues in the United States. The NFL, NBA, and other leagues will continue to add their games to streaming services at their own pace, unwilling to turn their back on the higher revenues that linear TV still offers.
MLS Season Pass
MLS Season Pass is a video streaming service that offers every match—including Leagues Cup and the entire Audi MLS Cup Playoffs—with no blackouts. It offers both English and Spanish announcers. MLS Season Pass also offers pre-match coverage, post-match analysis, highlights, player profiles, interviews, club content, match replays, live MLS NEXT Pro and MLS NEXT matches, and more.