A consumer study from Parks Associates titled Streaming Sports: The Fan Experience offers an analysis of how US households are consuming sports content, detailing subscription trends, churn drivers, and interest in various service tiers and interactive experiences.

The research of 8,000 US internet households shows ESPN+ is the clear leader in sports-specific streaming services, with 19 per cent of US internet households subscribing to ESPN+ and 10 per cent subscribing to NFL+.

Streaming has increased the accessibility of sports, enabling fans to watch events on their preferred devices—whether mobile, smart TVs, or laptops – on their own time or even while on the go.

Key findings from the study include:

• 33 per cent of US internet households subscribe to a D2C (direct-to-consumer) sports service.
• 43 per cent of US internet households personally watch live sports from any source.
• 70 per cent of sports viewers ages 18-24 watch at least one live game or match per week, compared to more than 87 per cent of those ages 55 and older.

“As more games move to streaming platforms, the traditional sports viewer, or ‘Sports Traditionalist’, who watches only via broadcast or pay-TV, is becoming a smaller segment of the overall audience,” commented Jennifer Kent, VP of Research at Parks Associates. “By Q3 2024, only 8 per cent of consumers in internet households were Sports Traditionalists, with an additional 13 per cent using both traditional outlets and streaming services to watch sports.”

With streaming services significantly boosting league revenues, sports organisations will continue exploring innovative ways to distribute games on these platforms. Subscribers to D2C sports apps generally report high satisfaction, with Net Promoter Scores (NPS) comparable to popular streaming services such as Prime Video, Disney+ and YouTube TV.

Additional highlights from the study include:

• The NBA has the most satisfied subscribers among D2C streaming sports services.
• Two-thirds of streaming sports service subscribers maintained their subscription after the season ended. Of those who cancelled, more than half said they were very likely to re-subscribe.

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Categories: Articles, Markets, OTT, Research

Tags: ESPN, NBA, NFL, Parks Associates