Blog: Sports

Read our latest daily deep dives, hot takes, and exciting updates about the entertainment world. Check out the latest insight from your favourite analyst, or search by coverage areas - music, entertainment and fandom, creator economy and social.

Why Amazon is bidding for NBA international rights

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Tim Mulligan

28 May 2024

The North American Basketball association (NBA) is currently negotiating for the renewal ofof its live broadcast rights. The deals, spanning the next 11 years, are estimated to work out at a combined $76 billion (some way below the NFL’s 2021 $100 billion 11-year deal ).

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Was 2024 the year of peak ad revenues for Paramount and the Super Bowl?

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Tim Mulligan

13 Feb 2024

Sunday saw the Super Bowl LVIII broadcast on CBS, Paramount+, and Nickelodeon, providing a bumper advertising windfall estimated at between $650-$700 million for parent company Paramount. The media majors’ entire business model is under intense scrutiny from investors made nervous by its losses (-$855 million for 2023 as of Q3 2023), and the overall share price being down 40% year-to-date.

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What the launch of the “Hulu for sports” platform means for Disney and for sports TV

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Tim Mulligan

7 Feb 2024

Hulu for sports

Today, ESPN (a Disney subsidiary), Fox, and Warner Bros Discovery announced : “...an understanding on principal terms to form a new joint venture (JV) to build an innovative new platform to house a compelling streaming sports service.

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Smackdown: Netflix is now a sports streamer – and this is just the beginning

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Tim Mulligan

23 Jan 2024

Today Netflix announcedthat it has just secured the 10-year exclusive rights to show WWE’s flagship weekly programme Raw in the U.S., Canada,U.K., and Latin America, with additional countries and regions to follow.

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DAZN bets on sports streaming future being driven by fandom

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Ben Woods

3 Aug 2023

The streaming-TV industry has an engagement question to answer. Of late, the dominant services have been preoccupied with soothing investor concerns over the impact of the cost-of-living crisis on subscriptions.

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Why Alcaraz’s win bodes well for sport as a future cornerstone of streaming TV

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Tim Mulligan

25 Jul 2023

Less than three years after Netflix’s founder Reed Hastings offered to sell the tech start-up to Blockbuster for $50 million, this year’s Wimbledon men’s single winner Carlos Alcaraz was born near Murcia, Spain.

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What the Charlotte Hornets sale says about sports fandom in 2023

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Tim Mulligan

20 Jun 2023

Charlotte Hornets

Basketball icon Michael Jordan isselling his majority ownershipin the Charlotte Hornets in a deal estimated to be valued at $3 billon (via ESPN ). This figure is more than ten times the $275 million Jordan initially paid for his majority stake in the NBA franchise back in 2010.

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Match point – Tennis faces its generational pivot through Netflix

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Tim Mulligan

19 Jan 2023

Drive to Survive

The recent success of the FIFA 2022 World Cup , despite the unwillingness of the organising body to update itsbrand identity,sent out mixed messages to sports rightsholders. On the one hand, business can continue as usual if one runs a unique branded tournament with thick-skinned partners.

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Is global sport now entering into the Colin Kaepernick era?

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Tim Mulligan

1 Dec 2022

For soccer fans, the last two weeks have been difficult. The World Cup kicked off on November 20thamid FIFA’s controversial prohibition of players wearing the OneLove armband (designed to protest host nation Qatar’s anti-LGBTQ+ laws).

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How DAZN is set to reboot global sports fandom

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Tim Mulligan

27 Oct 2022

Hidden in the stream of high-profile broadcast rights announcements from DAZN this month was an announcement that EA sports will be DAZN’s now global sponsor of its UEFA Women’s Champion’s League (UWCL) broadcast coverage.

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Amazon touches down with a new streaming era for NFL and a boost to Prime membership

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Tim Mulligan

27 Sep 2022

Thursday Night Football

On September 15th, Amazon Prime Video aired its first Thursday Night Football ( TNF ) match under its new$1 billion-per-yeardomestic broadcast rights deal . Amazon’s decision to become the exclusive broadcaster (via Prime Video and Twitch) has meant that all NFL fans outside of the local markets of the playing teams (which Amazon syndicates out to local broadcast-TV stations as part of the terms of the deal) must have a Prime subscription in order to watch the TNF games.

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Formula One’s rise of the creators shines a ray of hope on the future of the sport

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Srishti Das

22 Dec 2021

Creator economy

Last week marked the end of an eventful year for Formula One with the tight championship fight between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton. The hue and cry over the International Automobile Federation (FIA) regulations was a popular point of discussion among motor sports fans around the world.

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Why Amazon is now poised to disrupt the Indian sports broadcast landscape

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Srishti Das

22 Nov 2021

Indian Premier League

broadcast rights

The 2023-2028 Indian Premier League (IPL) broadcast rights auction in December has created intense activity in the Indian video streaming space, as incumbent holder Star India (now a Disney subsidiary) faces competition from an unlikely nascent content distribution partnership between Amazon and Sony Picture Networks India (SPN).

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EA’s exclusive FIFA license is under threat as games go cross-entertainment

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Karol Severin

22 Oct 2021

Last week it was reported that FIFA and EA are at an impasse regarding the renewal negotiations of an exclusive license deal. EA stated that it is considering renaming its flagship football title, while FIFA responded with a press release stating that “the future of gaming and esports for football stakeholders must involve more than one party controlling and exploiting all the rights’’ This is less about who is right and who is wrong, and more about the synergy of this once symbiotic partnership having run its course.

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Why sport star fandom is disrupting the traditionally broadcast-focused world of sports

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Tim Mulligan

14 Sep 2021

Sports Superstars

Manchester United

Saturday September 11thwas a big day for English footballing giant, Manchester United. The team that dominated the top flight of the most competitive football league in the world for two decades, up to its last domestic title triumph in 2013, was keen for Saturday to herald the return of their triumphant ways.

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The games universe is driving the rise of global football fandom

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Srishti Das

3 Sep 2021

English Premier League

Sport is built on the pillar of fandom, with a global network of passionate fanbases who are driven by different sporting cultures across the world. Football is a prime global example of this, with multiple popular leagues and tournaments spread out over the year.

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Why Real Madrid TV believes that premium sport will thrive in an AVOD environment

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Tim Mulligan

1 Sep 2021

Last week, Roku and Tubi TV announced that Real Madrid TV is being added to their AVOD services. Both the Roku Channel and Tubi TV are at the forefront of the AVOD disruption that is sweeping through the video industry.

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A handful of sports dominate fandom among esports viewers, but opportunity still exists for many

Cover image for A handful of sports dominate fandom among esports viewers, but opportunity still exists for many

Karol Severin

11 Aug 2021

Sports are increasingly executing on the overlap between gaming and esports. A handful of sports have established a strong foothold and lead among esports viewers. Data shows, however, that the still-emerging esports viewer segment provides opportunities across the sports fan spectrum.

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Euro 2020 – a pandemic-driven standout success

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Hanna Kahlert

15 Jul 2021

This last weekend saw the finals of the delayed UEFA Euro 2020, with Italy the winners. Footage of crowds over the preceding week’s semi-finals showed crowds flooding the streets; social media feeds filled with screen-capped memes and related socio-political commentary.

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The crowd still matters for live sports broadcasting

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Tim Mulligan

17 Jun 2021

sports broadcast

UEFA Champions League

At opposite sides of the globe, two top-flight international football events have kicked off over the last week. In semi-vaccinated Europe the month-long Euro 2020 tournament began on Friday June 11th, with 11 countries hosting the competition across Europe.

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