Live Sports: a waning appeal?

Research from Altman Solon shows that for audiences under 45, time spent on watching sports clips and highlights can rival live viewing hours, nearing three hours per week.

What's the draw?

→ "I can watch them whenever I want"

→ "I'm mainly interested in the results"

The trend hasn’t gone unnoticed with Sports organisations already selling highlights packages while feeding frantically their own social media accounts with short-form content.

It’s time to take it one step further though and include a new set of content players in the rights' cycles.

Who?

Sports Creators.

We’ve witnessed the rise of Content Creators who combine sports passion with entertainment.

YouTuber Celine Dept gained over 39.2 million subscribers and 25 billion views (in less than 18 months 🤯) with her football channel.

She exemplifies how creator-driven channels can rival even major organisations like FIFA (and its 22.2 million subscribers and 7 billion views on YouTube) in reach and impact.

This year, the NBA, who used to grant 50 hours of footage a season to creators, will now grant them 2.5K hours per season with a 25K hours of back catalogue access.

In a world where highlights start to become as coveted as live matches, traditional sports broadcasters should watch out for creators.

They’re already miles ahead of them as they already create fun, relatable and community-driven interactions around sports without any live.

How do you watch your favourite sports ? Full games or highlights?

Read more in this week's edition of Streaming Made Easy (marionranchet.substack.…)