Sports Rights The Great Reset
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The 20,000 Foot View: exposed live entertainment as a vulnerable asset class during a global health crisis, rendering services overly reliant on live sports broadcasts as primary churn candidates. A major overhaul in rights valuations by pay-TV and sports SVOD distributors is under way. Prioritising revenue over reach has become outdated for rights holders such as the English Premier League (EPL), with its primary distributors harbouring diminishing subscriber bases and reduced budgets. Understanding where audiences exist and consume content and targeting younger demographics are now strategic priorities for rights holders. A digital-centric road map, including esports, will help open up younger audiences, who are now primarily engaging with a post-broadcast live sports and entertainment world.
Key Insights
- Digital natives more likely to consume non-live than older, traditional sports fans, 20-24 year olds three times likely to watch highlights than olds
- Sports without is a weakened spectacle, highlighted the nine percentage points decrease watching live sports on TV to 2020
- Live TV are older: of those watching sports on TV in 2020 age with this demographic twice likely to consume live sports TV than year olds
- Social media audiences are younger: 20-24 year show the highest propensity to sports highlights on social media
- Digital natives more likely to consume non-live formats, over-indexing for social media and under-indexing for broadcast sports has expedited the sports rights bubble’s bursting point
- Without fans, innovation is required to return consumption to pre-COVID levels – a ‘made for TV’ product, the words of the NHL
Companies and brands mentioned in this report: Amazon, BT Sport, BT, Bundesliga, Comcast, Disney, Electronic Arts, EPL, Facebook, Gallagher Premiership Rugby, Instagram, Madden NFL, MediaPro, MLB, MLS, NBC, NBCUniversal, Netflix, NFL, NHL, NRL, Peacock, Sky Sports, Sky, Snapchat, Spotify, Tencent, TikTok, TNF, Twitch, Twitter, UEFA, UFC, Verizon, WeChat, WNBA, WWE ThunderDome, WWE, Yahoo, YouTube