Netflix made its first play into live sports this week, a category often regarded as traditional broadcast’s last stand.
Touted as a first-of-its-kind live sports event, The Netflix Cup was a live event featuring athletes from its sports-doc series Formula 1: Drive to Survive and Full Swing in a match-play golf tournament.
It’s a potentially pivotal move for the streamer, which does well with Drive and sports fare, like its recent hit series, Beckam. So far, however, it has stayed out of the gladiatorial sports-rights arena, leaving it to other players, like Prime Video’s Thursday Night Football. Outside of one-off games on Apple TV+ and Facebook, most other sports-rights holders are locked in and tied to the major mediaco’s linear assets.
That said, with the overall popularity of SVODs and AVODs continuing to rise, Media in Canada asked media buyers for their take on Netflix’s play and how live sports fit into the media mix. In short, they say, where there’s eyeballs, there’s opportunities.
“Consumers are making more [select] choices on what they are willing to pay for, and offering live sports may be a way to attract new audiences and maintain current subscribers,” says Magnus Nisbeth, VP of investments and operations at Initiative.
“There are few things that still garner mass reach like live sports,” notes Melisa Kotsopoulos, VP investment at PHD. Citing Netflix’s success with Drive to Survive, she notes that the global mass of some streamers creates new opportunities for advertisers.
“It’s well documented that Netflix’s Drive to Survive increased viewership for Formula 1 racing, serving as an interesting use case for brands [and] ultimately providing more options than ever to be part of the live event itself and to be immersed in the full range of related content.”
However, while live sports may be a good way to draw or retain viewers, the drawback is increasing clutter for consumers. “It creates more fragmentation for viewers, ultimately making it harder for audiences to find who owns what, and when they can watch it,” notes Adele Lettau, VP of investment and media at Dentsu Canada.
That clutter affects media buying and planning too.
“We have to pay very close attention to who owns each element of the sport in question, and those platforms will continue to change with rights and ownership,” she adds.
For Simon Chan, SVP investment at Publicis Media, the issue is framed around the particular client or campaign. “One client might be all-in when it comes to live sports, but another may just be interested in impressions and efficiency, and sports is not that,” he says.
Sports–and live sports specifically–are premium content, he stresses, pointing to the high prices for rights, which are passed on to advertisers and consumers.
“The price around sports isn’t coming down, no matter what,” he adds. “Everybody wants it to attract subscribers, but buying media around sports is not efficient.”
