Blog: sports rights

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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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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YouTube has dismantled the walls between social video and SVOD

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Ben Woods

24 Jan 2023

How do you define YouTube in 2023? The Google-owned app has evolved into a complicated media outfit. It stretches beyond social video content and deep into subscription video on demand (SVOD). It is a wholly different business to the platform that posted its first user-generated video – Me at the zoo – In April 2005.

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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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Why (and how) Apple has now fundamentally disrupted sports

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Tim Mulligan

16 Jun 2022

On Tuesday June 14th, Apple announced that it had secured the exclusive 10-year rights to broadcast the fastest growing football league in the world; the MLS. From 2023 through to 2032, live broadcast MLS matches will only be viewable through a new MLS streaming service, which will be exclusively available on the Apple TV app.

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What live in 2021 can learn from live in 1921

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Tim Mulligan

16 Apr 2021

sports broadcasting

virtual concerts

Nearly a hundred years ago in July 1921, the entertainment world changed forever thanks to the efforts of David Sarnoff, a Belarusian emigree to the US who headed up the Radio Corporation of America (RCA).

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D-Day for sports has finally arrived (…in Italy)

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Tim Mulligan

29 Mar 2021

Last Friday the sporting world moved one pivotal step closer to a streaming-first future. Sports video subscription service DAZN has now secured the rights to broadcast all Serie A matches for the next three years.

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The billion-dollar content play: Why Amazon is intentionally overpaying for its NFL rights

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Tim Mulligan

22 Mar 2021

Last Thursday , the sports ecosystem breathed a collective sigh of relief. The NFL, the world’s most valuable sports league, secured an 11-year broadcast deal worth a staggering $100 billion. This huge sum was secured despite the increasing disengagement of younger demographics with live TV sports viewing; less than 10% of US TV sports audiences are now 16-19 years old (source MIDiA Research Q4 2020 consumer survey).

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COVID fallout: BBC no longer considers UK Athletics value for money

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Alistair Taylor

19 Aug 2020

COVID-19 exposed live entertainment as a vulnerable asset class , specifically following the pandemic-enforced postponement of live sports . One of the hardest hit during this hiatus and ensuing uncertainty has been athletics, which saw its largest engagement driver and the ‘greatest show on earth’ in the Olympic games postponed till 2021 .

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TwitchSports: Amazon throws sports into the starting line-up

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Alistair Taylor

29 Jul 2020

Amazon-owned Twitch is no newcomer to sports. However, in a deliberate move to double down, Amazon has conceded that it needs to improve the discoverability of live sporting events for its platform users – so, as of last Wednesday, ‘Sports’ has become a standalone category with the return of Twitch.

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Forget Virtual – UFC and NRL going Remote

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Alistair Taylor

10 Apr 2020

Associated Press

With fans currently starved of sports entertainment during lockdown, rights holders are jumping out of the gate to be the first to put on live sports to serve any form of quick fix to see a jump in engagement.

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Amazon One - Family Christmas Nil

Alistair Taylor

18 Dec 2019

addressable audience

AFC Bournemouth

ageing audience

Ever since the English Premier League (EPL) awarded rights to tech major Amazon in June 2018, the excitement for December 2019 and how Amazon’s live stream delivery would pan out has been palpable. The EPL has long prioritised revenue over reach when entertaining rights bids, but this legacy approach is approaching an inflection point; its addressable audience is ageing, increasing the importance of striking a distribution deal with a digital outlet in order to target younger demographics.

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Knock On: Rights Holders Cannot Chance Latency?

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Alistair Taylor

26 Sep 2019

broadband providers

The IRB Rugby World Cup (RWC) commenced last Friday with hosts Japan producing a fine victory over second-time qualifiers Russia, 30-10. The first RWC to be held in Asia provides Australasian countries with a much more sociable tournament in terms of kick-off times.

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Could a Recession Change the Tide for Sports Rights Allocation?

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Alistair Taylor

24 Sep 2019

additive services

all-encompassing offering

Revenue remains rights holder’s priority qualifier for allocating rights. However, with an impending recession, we are likely nearing an inflection point whereby rights holders may start to look towards prioritising reach over revenue.

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Tencent Renewal: NBA the Envy of Global Sports Rights Holders?

Alistair Taylor

1 Aug 2019

Chinese Basketball Association

custom interactive services

The National Basketball Association (NBA) and Chinese tech conglomerate Tencent have announced a five-year extension of their existing partnership, with Tencent acting as the NBA’s official digital partner until the culmination of the 2024/2025 season.

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Is YouTube MLB’s Answer to Tap into Younger Audience?

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Alistair Taylor

29 Jul 2019

cable consumption

On July 18 th , Google-owned YouTube livestreamed the first of its exclusive Major League Baseball (MLB) matches, acquired through a partnership announced with the MLB at the end of April 2019 . YouTube’s first exclusive live game distribution deal with the MLB covers 13 games during the second half of the MLB’s 2019 regular season.

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Is Pay-TV killing off Niche Sports?

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Alistair Taylor

4 Jul 2019

With both the ICC Cricket World Cup and FIFA Women’s World Cup approaching their climaxes, the stark difference in audience engagement raises the question, is pay-TV killing off niche sports? Deciding the medium through which to distribute live sports has never been more crucial.

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Heavyweight Battle for Premium Sporting Rights Dependent on Three Factors

Cover image for Heavyweight Battle for Premium Sporting Rights Dependent on Three Factors

Alistair Taylor

3 Jun 2019

broadcast rights

The sports rights landscape has changed fundamentally with the emergence of streaming subscription video on demand (SVOD) services. Digital and broadcast rights used to be separate deals entirely, but now the lines are blurred, and competition is heating up for exclusive coverage of the most sought-after sporting rights.

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ESPN+ leverages UFC appeal to double subscriber base to 2 million in five months

Alistair Taylor

8 Feb 2019

direct-to-consumer

Disney announced in its Q1 earnings call on Tuesday that its sports-centric streaming service ESPN+ had surpassed two million subscribers, doubling its subscriber base in less than five months. Launched in April 2018 , Disney revealed in September 2018 that it had taken less than five months to surpass one million subscribers .

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Eleven Sports Loses Serie A Rights As Partnership With IMG Ends

Alistair Taylor

1 Feb 2019

audience acquisition

Eleven Sports, the fledgling sports-centric streaming service has lost the UK and Irish rights for Serie A and Eredivisie, following a strategic decision to ‘amicably’ end its partnership with international rights agency, IMG .

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