Elevating Sports Content in the Digital Age

By Joshua Woods, Pre-Sales, Red Bee Media

Over the last fifteen years, as VOD and FAST platforms have risen to dominance within the entertainment industry, sports content has slowly followed series and movies from traditional linear television to major streaming providers. This trend has similarly led to sports content being fragmented and rejoined into several packages across multiple platforms and services. The current state of sports programming across streaming and linear services has complicated fan engagement with content and created an amalgamation of sports and events competing for the attention of sports enthusiasts and relevance in a post-linear world.

The industry drive to push sports to use streaming services has been led by the viewership migration from traditional cable packages to the a la carte streaming model. Cord cutters have forced the major sports leagues to find new venues for their content and the streaming services have embraced sports to retain and grow their subscriber base. With a projected 118 million U.S. viewers in 2025 streaming sports content, the incentive to grow sports offerings is more important than ever.

But what does it mean for an average sports fan?

As streaming rights are awarded to the highest bidders and split among multiple platforms, you might need to subscribe to different platforms to follow your favourite teams. Amazon Prime has been the home of Thursday Night Football for years and Netflix is soon to host the NFL’s Christmas Day games starting with the 2024 season. This is particularly relevant for out-of-market viewers. In 2023, YouTube obtained the rights for NFL Sunday Ticket and most avenues to watch out-of-market games across a spectrum of sports are all positioned on streaming services.

All the major leagues in the US are jumping on this trend, each with their own streaming applications, paired with exclusive streaming rights allotted for out-of-market games. The NFL alone will be available, piecemeal, across 12 different channels and services, including traditional over-the-air networks, cable channels, and streaming services.

The same trend has reached the Olympics.

The upcoming Paris 2024 Olympics are spread across NBCUniversal properties in the US, including NBC, MSNBC, USA Network, and Peacock. Those who want to watch all the games need a mix of services.

As the necessity of having access to a variety of services hosting sports content exacerbates a growing problem in the television industry, viewers  discover an increasingly complicated viewership experience. Over-the-air television and cable packages once offered a simple solution for subscribers, with limited options for out-of-market events and a huge focus on local, regional, and national sports content. With pricy subscriptions, varying UIs, and unclear licensing, streaming platforms have become a less user-friendly option for sports viewership even while providing more coverage than ever before.

Viewers are willing to hop services to follow their favourite sports. In Altman Solon’s 2023 Global Sports Survey, fans are eager to spend more than one-third of their media service budgets on sports services and 70% of sports enthusiasts were ready to switch providers if their current service no longer hosted the sports content they were most interested in. This has been a trend for major global sports events like the World Cup and top-tier leagues in the US like the NFL and NBA. These high-profile sporting events draw in viewership and engagement with platforms, encouraging fans to follow their beloved sports. The staying power that sports fans bring to streaming services provides a massive incentive to platform owners and will only increase the likelihood of leagues further splitting their broadcasting rights across providers.

Major sporting events and leagues significantly impact viewer engagement and platform adoption. Streaming platforms that hosted NFL games saw a larger-than-average growth in monthly viewers in the last quarter of 2023, with Paramount+ leading all platforms after hosting Super Bowl LVIII.  Paramount+ streaming the Super Bowl alongside traditional television broadcasts contributed to it being the “most watched program ever” according to the NFL, with more than 200 million viewers across all platforms, including being the “most-streamed Super Bowl in history.” This shift for major events from traditional airing methods to streaming platforms underscores the significant role that streaming platforms play in sports media.

Streaming sports packages also offer an inherent advantage over traditional over-the-air and cable options by serving the exact content fans want to watch directly. With a range of options and dedicated services, dedicated fans can select the platforms and packages that will allow them to receive the level of coverage for a sport they are interested in. The current sports landscape offers more variety and choice than ever before, which is great for the supporters of a specific sport or team. However, the mix of services needed to support sports fans, especially those of multiple sports, is a Content Discovery dilemma.

The plethora of platforms cater specifically to viewers who know what they want to watch and are savvy enough to track that content across all the viewing options available. However, without a centralized repository of information, the distribution of sports content across platforms requires third-party research for anyone who is not as familiar with a specific sports league’s airing model.

In response, content owners are seeking creative solutions to mitigate these issues.

ESPN, FOX, and Warner Bros. Discovery recently announced a joint service dedicated to sports content. Venu Sports specifically acts as an aggregation of sports content licensed by the parties involved. The future will tell if this new venture will provide sports enthusiasts with a centralized sports service replacing the current ones in their libraries, or a service that adds yet another subscription cost to their budgets.

However, this approach appears to be a step in the right direction. The industry needs a sports solution that can support connectivity through Content Discovery. Dedicated fans are eager to know what content is being featured, when their favourite teams are playing, and where they can watch it. With 95% of fans streaming sports content in the US, providing timely airing and availability information is increasingly important, especially for delivering a more diversified sports experience across various platforms. Viewers need an inclusive environment that mixes sports data and Content Discovery tools, and platform owners can greatly benefit from strategic partnerships that drive these solutions.

Data aggregators like Red Bee Media provide third-party connectivity between traditional linear content and the ever-evolving world of streaming media. Facilitating the integration of these disparate data sets and normalizing that data for end platforms provides a more streamlined and consistent sports product for hosting platforms and sports supporters. Providing the ability to track events across a spectrum of airing models should be the goal of any platform hosting sports content.

As the viewers prepare to watch the 2024 Summer  Olympics, it’s not too late for platform owners to look to the future of sports in their services. North America is poised to host the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Major events, including the World Cup and the Olympics, as well as the upcoming NFL season – and likely more seasons to come – will continue to be key drivers for fans to adopt various platforms. Assessing how a service supports search and discovery of sports programming now will provide a greater experience for existing users and a higher likelihood of acquiring loyal sports fans as users before the next prime events.