According to Ampere Analysis – a data and analytics company specialising in media – in the big 5 European markets (UK, Germany, Italy, France and Spain) subscription streaming services will contribute 20% to total spend on sports rights this year. This figure represents an eight percentage point rise on 2021.
“While, streaming services have been challenging the traditional pay TV model within the wider media landscape for some years now, sports broadcasting rights remained the final major property yet to see significant investment from pure-OTT services”.
Italy represent the market with largest share of total sports rights spend contributed by subscription streaming services – 53% by the end of the year. This follows DAZN’s landmarks win for domestic broadcast rights of Italy’s leading football league, Serie A. In Germany, subscription services contribute 32% to sports rights spend, and in Spain and France the figure is 16% and 14% , respectively.
Only 2% of total sports rights spend will come from subscription streaming services in the UK. Ampere Analysis notes that the British sports broadcast market is dominated by incumbent Pay TV service Sky, and also BT Sport (to a lesser degree). Among UK sports viewers with access to the internet “only 15% say they never watch sports via online video services, while 62% stream sports on a weekly basis or more” according to the company.
Across the big five European markets in 2021, DAZN became the third largest spender on broadcast rights for sports, rising above BT Sport, and will overtake Telefonica this year to become the second largest and spending a total of €1.8B. Sky will continue to be the largest spender in 2022, investing €3.4B in sports rights. Ampere Analysis also notes that Amazon will move from 10th to 6th place in terms of sports rights spend this year.
A report from Nielsen earlier this year shows that rights deals with OTT services for the top five sports leagues (at the local level) – as a percentage of total value – has grown from 4% to 23% in the last two years. OTT rights deals for the UEFA Champions League in the same markets has risen from 5% in 2018 to 23% in 2021.
