Study: Most Sports Fans Want More Features, Fewer Platforms when Streaming
As fall settles in across the United States, sports fans are growing more and more anxious for the return of their favorite team to action, if it hasn’t already. The NFL and college football seasons are in full swing already, and the NHL and NBA aren’t far behind.
Deloitte, a firm that does market research in myriad sectors of the economy has released a new survey regarding the viewing habits of sports fans. As subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) services like Peacock and Max continue to add more live sporting events, viewers are becoming concerned at the fragmentation they’re seeing. Deloitte’s study shows that nearly half of all sports fans are worried about missing games they want to watch because they don’t subscribe to the right streaming platform.
Users would pay to solve that problem, according to the study. Deloitte found that 59% of all sports fans and 80% of Millennials would opt for a higher-cost streaming platform that incorporates all the sports they want to watch. That’s especially good news for ESPN, which carries more sports rights from major leagues than any other single provider. ESPN is laying the groundwork to launch a streaming version of its full cable offerings sometime in the next few years, a platform fans have been clamoring for since before the launch of ESPN+.
Overall, 30% of Deloitte’s respondents said they had watched a sporting event on an SVOD service in the past year. The number jumps to 46% among Millennials, reinforcing the notion that older viewers are more resistant to watching sports via streaming. Regardless of age, fans who watch sports on streaming think that their chosen platform should come with more features than a standard TV broadcast.
Thirty-five percent of participants said they wanted real-time stats and analytics included in their experience, while 34% said they wanted the ability to switch to different camera angles. Co-viewing with friends and family is also a big want among streaming audiences, particularly Gen Zers who say that sports viewing is better enjoyed when done communally.
Prime Video already offers analytics overlays and the ability to switch camera angles for “Thursday Night Football” games, among other features. Programmers at Max may want to take heed of Deloitte’s study, as that service is gearing up to bring on a host of live sports for free to subscribers starting with the MLB playoffs this fall.
What can these streamers do to attract younger viewers? Integrating more social media options would help, as the Deloitte survey shows that 51% of Gen Z sports fans use social media to look up opinions and read comments from others during a game. Eighty percent of this age group follows an athlete online, and 46% of that segment has then watched that athlete’s events from home. Simply put, the further integration of social media options with the sports streaming experience will lead to more young viewers watching games.
The number of SVOD services that offer live sports is large and growing. ESPN+, Peacock, Paramount+ and Prime Video all offer NFL games, and Max is about to onboard a wide selection of games from the NBA, NHL and MLB. SVOD platforms can clearly attract enough viewers to live sports to make the pursuit of sports rights necessary, but if they want to keep users engaged they’ll have to make sure they have plenty of features, and plenty of sports to watch.
Amazon Prime Video
Amazon Prime Video is a subscription video streaming service that includes on-demand access to 10,000+ movies, TV shows, and Prime Originals like “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” “Jack Ryan,” “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” “The Boys,” and more. Subscribers can also add third-party services like Max, Showtime, STARZ, and dozens more with Amazon Prime Video Channels. Prime Video also offers exclusive live access to NFL Thursday Night Football.