Sticking out with sports is a risky game for streamers to play
Sticking out with sports is a risky game for streamers to play
Differentiating from other streaming services has become difficult, but using live sports to accomplish this goal could be a massive gamble.
Viewers are having a hard time telling subscription streaming services apart. Data recently published by Hub Research confirms that differentiation between top services is difficult, and in most cases, getting harder for audiences.
Across multiple different on-demand streaming services in 2026, Hub found that it is harder for customers to describe what made a streaming service unique as compared to its peers in 2026 than it was in 2025. But there was one outlier in the data: the NBCUniversal streaming service Peacock. Viewers used sports to differentiate Peacock from competing streamers in the early part of 2026, but other streaming services that want to use that method will have to take extreme care not to overleverage themselves by pursuing expensive sports rights.
In Hub’s data, 64% of respondents said they were able to explain to someone else exactly what makes Peacock unique. That rose from 62% in 2025, and while that may not seem like a major increase, it’s worth noting that Netflix, Apple TV, Disney+, Hulu, and Paramount+ all saw fewer viewers able to discern them from their peers this year compared to last.
Sports was the most-given answer when viewers were asked which benefit made Peacock better than other streamers, and it was the only service for which sports was a top-three answer among respondents. Clearly, the platform made an impression on viewers earlier this year when it hosted both Super Bowl LX and the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics back-to-back.
It’s not hard to see why a streamer like Peacock would lean so far into its sports rights as a key differentiator. The service offers such a wide selection — including NFL, NBA, and MLB games, Big Ten and Notre Dame football and basketball, English Premier League soccer, and a lot more — that it would be foolish not to emphasize these rights. Ninety-six of the top 100 broadcasts of 2025 were sporting events, showing that sports truly are one of the last programming categories that can reliably deliver a sizable TV audience.
But as much as Peacock’s numerous live sports options have helped the service stand out, they also serve as a reminder that sports rights are a double-edged sword. For all its reputation as a sports streamer, Peacock isn’t close to giants like Netflix, Disney+, and Prime Video that have hundreds of millions of subscribers each; the NBCU platform stalled out at 41 million subs for three consecutive quarters in 2025, finally inching up to 44 million in the fourth quarter, likely thanks in part to the return of the NFL.
And Peacock still isn’t profitable yet, either, especially after financial commitments to the NBA were added to NBCU’s balance sheet. The NBA deal caused Peacock’s losses to widen to over $500 million in the fourth quarter of 2025, and now NBC has the NFL knocking at its door for a raise as well.
That’s the biggest reason that using sports to stand out is a tough ask for streaming services. Sports rights are incredibly expensive, and they’re only getting more so. Streamers that pay the rising costs of sports rights will inevitably pass those costs on to customers; just look at Netflix, which announced a new round of price increases last week. The streamer has begun offering multiple boxing matches each year, NFL games on Christmas, select MLB events, and the FIFA Women’s World Cup beginning next year.
Data from Ampere suggests that Netflix will spend over $700 million on sports alone this year. Compare that to 2023, when the streamer had barely begun branching out into live events at all, and sold an ad-free plan for as little as $10 per month. The cost to stream Netflix without ads now is double that, and there’s no doubt that the outlay on live sports has played a big part in rising customer costs.
Viewers have responded to higher streaming costs by being more accepting of ads, according to a survey from Deloitte. Sixty-eight percent of customers now have at least one paid, ad-supported plan to combat high streaming costs, but doing so could cut them off from access to sports in some cases. HBO Max, for example, does not offer live sports on its ad-supported plan, reserving that feature for ad-free customers.
There’s a limit to how far customers will be pushed on prices, even for live sports. Deloitte’s survey also found that 61% of streaming subscribers say they’d cancel their favorite service if the price rose by $5 per month or more at a time. Spending on sports rights may help streamers stand out, but it also creates an environment where they’re more or less forced to raise prices enough to compensate for the cost, but not enough to drive cancelation rates through the roof.
The data from Hub shows that sports can help streaming services stand out from the competition. But streamers will need deep pockets to acquire live sports, and will have to raise prices as they assemble more sports packages. That could leave streamers differentiating themselves by another, far less desirable aspect: how expensive they are as compared to every other streamer out there.
Peacock
Peacock is a subscription video streaming service from NBCUniversal that includes original shows, blockbuster movies, and classic television series. Peacock is home to “Yellowstone,” “The Office,” and original hits like “Poker Face” and “Bel-Air.” You can also watch live sports and NBC programming, including the NFL, MLB, WWE, the Olympics, the Premier League, NASCAR, the French Open, college football and basketball, and the PGA Tour. Premium Plus subscribers can stream their local NBC feed in all 210 markets.