The rise of sports-based TV series has greased the wheels for streaming heavyweights like Netflix and Amazon’s Prime Video to push further into live sports, according to a new study from entertainment analytics firm Luminate Data.
The Tuesday report shows the aforementioned streaming services have been “dominant” when it comes to providing sports “shoulder” content — which Luminate defined as “programming that is about specific sports, teams, well-known athletes and sports-adjacent programming.” Examples include “Receiver” and “Formula 1: Drive to Survive” on Netflix, “F.C. Barcelona: A New Era” on Prime Video and “WWE Evil” on Peacock, among others.
This genre has become remarkably popular over the past five years, Luminate said, with 263 shoulder shows hitting streaming since 2020. Netflix leads the pack with 26% of all shoulder shows produced, while Prime Video grabs the silver medal with 19% of all shoulder programming.
“One of the major themes we’ve seen in 2024 has been the significant investments and subsequent shift of sports content to streaming from traditional to linear networks. We anticipate this trend will continue its growth in 2025,” Luminate SVP Carolyn Finger said in the report.
She continued: “Sports shoulder content has paved the way for this transition and continues to complement the programming strategies across streaming platforms that have disrupted the way Americans view sports on TV.”
The increase in shoulder content has come at the same time the top streaming services have become real players in the live sports business. Prime Video streamed its first “Thursday Night Football” game in 2022, the same year Apple TV+ started streaming Major League Baseball games on Friday nights. And Netflix — fresh off of reporting 108 million people streamed the Mike Tyson-Jake Paul fight, according to its metrics — is set to stream two NFL games on Christmas Day. Netflix paid a combined $150 million for the pair of games (and anticipation for the Tyson-Paul fight was boosted by Netflix’s “Countdown” documentary leading up to the November event, Luminate noted).
The total number of shoulder shows in 2024 is projected to surpass the record number that hit streaming last year, when more than 60 programs were available, per Luminate’s research.
And what kind of sports have the streamers been gravitating towards? Soccer has been the most popular sport to program around, Luminate found, thanks in large part to its appeal outside the States. “Welcome to Wrexham,” which chronicles Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney’s English soccer club and is available on Hulu via FX, is one clear example here (the series streams on Disney+ outside the USA).
“The most popular sports have international interest or large audiences in the U.S.,” Finger wrote in her report. “For example, both golf and baseball generated a lot of revenue but didn’t generate a high volume of shoulder content. Similarly, content about Olympic sports (e.g., running, skiing, swimming) didn’t have a high volume of commissions.”
Moving forward, the top streaming services will continue to be major players when it comes to acquiring live sports — even when ratings are trending in the wrong direction, as seen by the NBA’s new $76 billion TV deal. Live sports, unlike shoulder content, carry a premium because they’re live — forcing viewers to watch events as they happen, rather than pushing them off for later.
“Exclusive access to games, sports and leagues is increasingly a differentiator for streaming services and is seen as a way to reduce subscriber churn,” Finger explained in conclusion.
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