To understand the relationship between sports and streaming video, consider the following: Amazon’s $1 billion-a-year deal for streaming Thursday Night Football It is literally changing Internet habits in the United States. Comcast President Mike Kavanagh, speaking on December 4 at the UBS conference, said that Amazon Tanf The game “accounts for approximately 25 percent of all Internet traffic on Thursday nights” and that it single-handedly “shifted the peak data usage on our broadband network from Sunday night to Thursday night.” Comcast, which has more than 32 million subscribers to the service Broadband Internet, know where users are spending this precious bandwidth.
It’s common to say that sports is the glue that holds the rest of the pay-TV package together, but even though the package is far from over, every media company with sports rights has decided to move forward with streaming. Or, as analyst Brad Adgate points out, this is the year leagues and broadcasters started saying, “Hey, you know, my audience is out there.”
Disney CEO Bob Iger said the company is transforming ESPN from the biggest booster of linear TV and “transforming it into a preeminent digital sports platform.” ESPN+ has 26 million subscribers (albeit at $10.99 per month, a much lower price than expected for “flagship” ESPN), and Hulu is simulcasting as many NHL games as that league has sought to leverage the Disney-owned service for access.
At Warner Bros. Discovery, the Max streaming platform, rolled out live sports — including the MLB playoffs and NBA and NHL games — in October. And at Paramount+ and NBCUniversal’s Peacock, streaming sports are among the biggest drivers of new subscribers.
“Sports is a core part of our value proposition. That’s the way we think about it,” says Kelly Campbell, president of Peacock. On one weekend in September, Campbell notes, Peacock hosted 51 live sporting events (including Up to seven simultaneous events), including games from the NFL, Premier League and Big Ten.
(LR) NBC Sunday Night Football Commentator Cris Collinsworth, entertainer Carrie Underwood and NBC Sunday Night Football Play-by-play announcer Mike Tirico speaks before a game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Las Vegas Raiders at Allegiant Stadium on September 24, 2023 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Ethan Miller/Getty Images
“For a peacock, sports are a very valuable acquisition,” says Campbell. “It attracts people, and when you look at the breadth of the type of sports that we offer, I think that’s where we start to really look at consumer preferences, just like we do with entertainment content.”
Paramount Global, which has 63 million global streaming subscribers, has cited its NFL games as major drivers of Paramount+ subscriptions, and Amazon says so Tanf It has been a catalyst for both prime subscriptions and advertising growth.
Beyond subscriptions and ads, streaming pay is also important. When every household paid for cable or satellite television, sports were everywhere, but for consumers under 40, cable is not a popular choice.
“What we’ve seen increasingly in this kind of fragmented TV world is that younger customer segments in general are moving out of pay TV and want to have more choices,” said JB Perrett, Warner Bros. Discovery’s president of streaming and gaming. Hollywood Reporter In an interview ahead of Max Sports’ launch in October, he noted, “Older customers generally stay a lot more with pay TV — it’s great value. And so we’re trying to kind of repackage that reach and that audience, but in a way that ultimately tries to maintain economic parity and models so that We do not deprive one or take advantage of another.
Striking a balance between new and old means walking a tightrope. Disney’s September carriage deal with Charter Communications will make any eventual ESPN streaming service available with cable packages, and WBD looks forward to working with cable providers in the Max B/R Sports category as well.
This dynamic will likely be a focal point in the upcoming sports streaming wars. Is sports an important part of the value proposition, as is the case for Peacock or Paramount+? Or is it a premium option worth an additional fee?
“In the early days, people would come to us to watch the game, right? They’d Google ‘where can I watch the Chiefs-Rams game,’ and then, well, they’d sign up for the Peacock because we owned it,” Campbell says. “It’s true that this still happens, but now we’re starting to prove that Peacock is the place to go for exercise. That’s why our marketing message now focuses on the breadth and depth of the sports we offer. “For me, this is a really important step.”
For example, Max will start charging $10 a month for its B/R Sports tier early next year, before the March Madness basketball tournament.
“Everywhere else in the world, except in the United States, sports games are sold separately,” Perrett said. “And part of the reason the pay-TV package is in the state it is in is frankly because a lot of the expensive sports games have been squeezed into it at the base entertainment level, which makes it very expensive for people who want entertainment and don’t necessarily want sports.”
But beyond strategic imperatives, there remains a technical challenge. In an interview for the cover story THR This summer, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said his league was reluctant to sell exclusive games to streamers until it was sure there would be no glitches. Amazon has proven to be reliable, but from now on, everyone will be tested.
“Every ISP, especially fixed wireless, will be put to the test as this transition from sports to streaming continues, especially in January, when an NFL playoff game will be broadcast for the first time ever exclusively on a streaming platform. “Which will be our peacock,” Kavanagh said at the UBS conference.
Indeed, Peacock faces pressure to prove on January 13 that it can handle the first exclusively-streamed NFL postseason game. Patrick Miceli, executive vice president and CTO of direct-to-consumer and Peacock at NBCUniversal, says they’ve been preparing for this event for months, stress-testing the system to make sure it works.
“Exclusive NFL games have the potential to attract Peacock’s largest audience ever, with simultaneous streams unprecedented in the US sports market,” says Miceli. “We began preparing from a technology standpoint the moment the deal was signed last spring. We focused our efforts on large-scale non-functional testing of load management and reliability of our event platform and operations.”
Meanwhile, there’s a big wildcard: Netflix. The streaming giant doesn’t own any sports rights (even YouTube does). NFL Sunday Ticket). Instead, its sports strategy is two-pronged: documentaries and docuseries Driving to survive, In full swing And Quarterback; And the live events he puts on himself. The first match was a golf match between Formula 1 drivers and PGA Tour professionals. The next exhibition, scheduled for March in Las Vegas, is a tennis exhibition, the main event of which is the confrontation between Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz. This may not be the NFL, but since Netflix controls every aspect of it, the company can secure sponsorship integrations and run productions as it sees fit.
These moves add up to a potentially combustible moment: Sports are on the verge of shifting to live streaming, but business models are still being built.
“I don’t know if the leap of faith is too much,” Campbell, Peacock’s president, says of investing in live game streaming. “But it’s definitely a sign of belief in what our team can do.”
“I’m very focused on these NFL games right now — it’s a big investment financially and a big investment as a team. But it’s also a big investment in the brand,” she adds. “I think it shows the consumer that we’re making big swings and trying to get the best Content and the biggest live events on Peacock, then shows the leagues, the creative community, and the industry that we are here and that we are invested for the long term.”
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Scoreboard: Who has broadcast rights
NBA on Max and MLS on Apple, while NFL, PGA and MLB are not exclusive
Tim Hittman/Getty Images
the above – NBA, MLB, NHL, March Madness, NASCAR
Paramount+ – NFL, Champions League, UEFA, Serie A, NWSL
ESPN+ – NFL, MLB, NHL, UFC, College Football, F1, Bundesliga, PGA Tour, La Liga
peacock – NFL, MLB, WWE, Premier League, college football, basketball, PGA Tour
Prime Video – NFL, MLB, WWE, Premier League, college football, basketball, PGA Tour
Apple TV+ – MLB, MLS
A version of this story appeared in the December 15 issue of The Hollywood Reporter. Click here to subscribe.
The NFL, NBA, and MLB have long been some of the most popular sports leagues in the United States, attracting millions of viewers each year. With the increasing popularity of streaming services, fans are constantly searching for the best places to stream their favorite games. As the competition between streaming platforms heats up, The Hollywood Reporter delves into the ongoing race to secure the rights to these highly sought-after live sports events, providing insights into where fans can go to catch all the action. With a plethora of options available, the battle for supremacy in the sports TV streaming market is shaping up to be a fierce one.