Sports SVOD Services Deep Dive

The 20,000 Foot View: Sports-centric subscription video on demand (SVOD) services have entered international markets, looking to capture digital-native audiences from pay-TV and other established SVOD services. Eleven Sports’ demise in the UK provides the best case study for how streaming services can struggle when entering a market with insufficient rights offerings. A failure to secure carriage deals with traditional broadcasters was detrimental to Eleven’s  offering as rightsholders (demanding reach) rescinded the deals, leaving the service only with non-exclusive La Liga to entice UK subscribers to its platform. Complicating the rights challenge is the essentially different demographic compositions of pay-TV and sports SVOD subscribers, and the specific behaviours these valuable audiences display when considering how to address them. 

Key Findings

• ESPN+ leads sports SVOD services in English-speaking markets with XXX weekly active usage (WAU) penetration and XXX subscription penetration in XXX XXX of consumers rank sports as their most preferred genre for a video service
• Eleven Sports in the UK has the lowest WAU penetration for local sports services at XXX and even lower subscription penetration at XXX in XXX 2018
• DAZN in Canada had WAU penetration of XXX in XXX 2018, and subscription penetration of XXX with three or more digital subscriptions decreased from a peak of XXX in XXX 2017 to XXX in XXX 2018
• The decline of binge viewing as an activity from XXX in XXX 2016 to XXX in XXX 2018 highlights the attention economy has reached the XXX year olds accounted for XXX of sport SVOD service WAUs in XXX 2018, with usage still a niche behaviour and at only XXX penetration for the same XXX year olds only account for XXX of those who consume sports on TV; however with XXX penetration the activity is still six times more common than sports consumption on XXX of WAU for ESPN+ in the US, XXX of Kayo Sports WAUs in Australia and XXX for DAZN in Canada are all under XXX years old
• Males are more likely to pay for sports SVOD services, accounting for XXX of those who subscribed in XXX XXX of cord-cutters engage with sports SVOD services, compared with just XXX of pay-TV subscribers

Companies and brands mentioned in this report:  AFL, Amazon Prime Video, Amazon, Apple, AppleTV+, Crave TV, DAZN, Disney, Disney+, Eleven Sports, ESPN+, XXX Hulu, Kayo Sports, KFC Big Bash, La Liga, NBA, Netflix, NFL, NHL, Now TV, NRL, UFC, Warner Media.