Sports Rights: Streamers vs. TV Networks

There are no assets more valuable in the media business than sports TV rights, but determining just how valuable they are is no easy task.

Now the Variety Intelligence Platform special report “Sports Rights: Streamers vs. TV Networks,” from veteran media writer David S. Cohen, assesses the current landscape for the full range of these properties in the U.S. at a particularly dynamic time in media.

The launch later this year of major direct-to-consumer ventures from both ESPN and Fox is symbolic of the shift in momentum in sports rights from traditional broadcasting to streaming.

Pro and college games’ unparalleled ability to consistently drive sizable TV audiences at the national level was once the exclusive domain of Disney, Comcast, Fox, Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Global.

But if Amazon and Apple haven’t raised the competitive stakes enough with their willingness to lure away key rights packages in recent years, Netflix has only compounded the challenge in the last 12 months by coming on just as strong.

“Sports Rights: Streamers vs. TV Networks” takes stock of the next wave of major rights packages up for bidding, including the UFC and F1, as well as existing key packages that point to the changing sensibilities among rights holders, such as the souring ESPN-MLB relationship. Extensive data is supplemented with exclusive Luminate survey stats on consumer engagement with a wide range of sports leagues.

In particular, the special report digs into the three dueling market dynamics shaping the sports rights landscape: fragmentation, aggregation and consolidation. With S&P Global pegging spending on domestic sports rights at $30 billion in 2024, there are hard questions to be asked about the return on the biggest investment content and distribution companies are making in all of media.