On Christmas Day, Netflix broadcast two NFL games around the world. It was a huge moment for a streamer that had been reticent about offering live events, and live sport in particular, for so long.

The next day, Amazon Prime Video showed a slate of Premier League soccer matches in the UK, which it has been doing since 2019. Boxing Day is a traditional, significant day in the UK soccer calendar. So, a tech company winning these rights was highly notable.

For streamers, those two events over Christmas set the tone for the year to come. It promises to be a hugely significant one in sports streaming that will impact every aspect of the industry, from ad-buyers and executives making programming decisions, to the teams behind the tech.

Sport drives big viewer numbers

Like their cable forebearers, everyone in streaming knows that having live sports rights is a boon for success rates. Sport helps media companies achieve multiple goals: driving subscriptions and advertising revenues. Sports streaming also provides consumers with another reason to give up their cable bundle, of which sport has long been the centerpiece.

The numbers make this all very clear. Those Christmas NFL games on Netflix drew in an average of 26.5 million viewers, according to Nielsen Big Data and Panel, with the Ravens-Texans clash peaking at 31.3 million. Ahead of time, ad packages were reportedly going for over $5 million and had sold out by mid-November.

On the surface, this is all very exciting for the sports leagues as well as the streamers. But there is a balance to be struck. Of course, the leagues want as many bidders as possible vying for their rights packages and driving up the price. They know that the direction of travel is towards streaming and away from cable and network TV.

However, it is those legacy platforms that can generally still bring in the biggest number of viewers. And that’s something that appears unlikely to change over the next 12 months. This means that while the streaming services will have a growing presence in this space, major leagues won’t be handing over all their rights packages to streamers just yet.

Sports is an advertising powerhouse

Adam Dalrymple, Senior Research Analyst at Enders Analysis, explained why advertising has also been crucial to the shift to streaming. Usually “streamers want to own global rights to content with good shelf life that can be watched on demand around the world, and sports the opposite of that,” he said. This is because “it has limited library value. You have to license it, and it’s regional.”

However, “Amazon and Netflix now have launched ad tiers,” and so are already looking to grow in that space. Yet, with Netflix, the ad-tier is still nowhere close to outstripping the ad-free tier. For example, in the UK just 20% of Netflix’s 17.6 million subscribers are on that cheaper, ad-supported tier,  according to research from Ampere Analysis.

But this no longer means the streamer cannot serve them ads.  “What’s brilliant about sport is you can sell advertising to non-ad tier members during sport,” explained Dalrymple.

New leagues, new opportunities

While streaming companies are, and should be, keen to get involved in sports, there are not that many key rights packages up for grabs at the moment. As Dalrymple noted:

“We’re actually coming to the end of a long chain of rights deals that have locked up most of the premium leagues in Europe and the US for the next few years.”

He added that “there’s actually not much room for maneuver. The NFL, the NBA in the US now is now locked up. Most of the European leagues and the Champions League have their agreements signed until 2027 at least.”

There are still opportunities to be found though. Michael Frank, Principal Analyst – Sports Media at Omdia, commented that “There’s been a lot of sports leagues popping up recently. And these sports leagues that are popping up in all different sports need to be viewed.”

These include increasingly popular sports like women’s volleyball, a 3×3 women’s basketball league and the TGL golf competition spearheaded by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy. “These leagues have sports rights available to them and streamers and legacy channels and broadcast channels and networks need content,” said Frank.

Dalrymple said that another area to look at is the UFC – the wildly popular Mixed Martial Arts competition lead by all-action boss Dana White. “It’s a competition that’s seen enormous growth recently. And so, I imagine you’ll see some streamers swarming around those rights when it comes up for auction.”

Some streamers are taking stock and even retreating in certain spaces. Prime Video is not keeping its Premier League coverage because of a price rise and its growing interest in the Champions League.

“The fact that Amazon Prime has pulled away from the Premier League rights means that the live football landscape in UK is dominated by Sky Sports and TNT Sports,” a senior industry insider whose current role means that could only speak anonymously, pointed out to DCN.

Technical troubles

Money is not the only thing that puts off streamers from taking the plunge into sports. Live events are particularly hard to pull off. “The technical challenges of providing sport on streaming platforms all comes from one of its biggest selling points.

The fact that it is appointment viewing,” continued the same senior industry insider. “The Paul v Tyson fight was a prime example of how buffering issues, glitches and outages can take away from the production values and spectacle of the event.” 

Netflix seems to be the company that has struggled most with this, but all are wise to be wary.

Venu didn’t have a sporting chance

So integral to the future of streaming is sports going to be that some of the biggest companies in the game decided to collaborate on a project. Venu was meant to be a partnership between Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery and we were meant to see it this year. Then, just days ago and amidst legal acrimony, Disney announced a merger between its Hulu + Live TV offering and rival Fubo, killing Venu before it ever went live.

The fact that Fubo engaged in a legal battle with some of the world’s biggest media companies underlines just how important sports is. That development is just the start of the twists and turns that we will see in the story of sports streaming in 2025.  One thing is already clear though: In an increasingly crowded and competitive space, the competition for sports will be felt across the media industry.