Sports Consumer Trends The Sun Sets on Pay-TV Dominance
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The 20,000 Foot View: With subscription video on demand (SVOD) services surpassing pay-TV penetration en route to becoming a mainstream medium, sporting consumption habits have inherently changed. Rights holders, broadcasters, streaming services and betting and gaming companies will all feel the impact of fast-changing consumption habits and new regional nuances. The impact will be most pronounced in 2021, when the premium sporting rights come up for renewal.
Premium and domestic rights are currently largely owned by traditional pay-TV operators, so for now live TV sports overshadows the streaming disruptors with smaller rights packages. However, audience change is already taking place and cracks are appearing in the traditional model, especially for smaller sports which are losing audience and sacrificing reach for revenue from pay-TV providers.
Maintaining audiences and providing excessive convenient content – to the detriment of live sporting events attendance – are key challenges for sports rights owners. Blending in interactive value-add engagement services such as social media sports highlights, sports betting functionality and e-sports interactivity can all help broaden the demographic reach and diversify revenue streams for rights holders ahead of the impending sports rights ‘D-Day’ in 2021.
Key Insights
- Italy ranks for both live TV sports and watching sports highlights on media at and penetration respectively 2019
- Just of stream sports
- Scheduled highlights pull, with the UK highest penetration, only eight percentage points than consuming the sport live
- Italy ranks for consumers placing wagers on fixtures at compared to an of
- Italy, Sweden and Spain have the highest sports attendance penetration
- The US the Netherlands have the highest for favouring viewing live sports attending, at and respectively
- Nearly half both live TV sports viewers sports betting enthusiasts have pay-TV (rising to of Swedish sports
- DAZN’s Italian had weekly active usage (WAU) subscription penetration as of 2019, by its premium domestic (Serie rights of Italian Serie A watchers pay for a DAZN subscription, showing increased engagement through ownership of premium domestic rights
- E-sport event demonstrate the highest propensity to an SVOD subscription at penetration; sports highlights viewers are second
Companies and brands mentioned in this report: Amazon, Amazon Prime Video, BBC, Call of Duty, DAZN, Eleven Sports, Endeavor, English Premier League, FA, FIFA, Facebook, Fortnite, ICC, ICC Cricket World Cup, IMG, Instagram, Kayo Sports, La Liga, Match of the Day, NBA, NBA NFL, PUGB, Serie A, Take Two Interactive, UEFA Champions League