By Stuart Thomson
Global TV subscriptions for sports have declined by 9 per cent since 2019, while adoption of streaming services has increased by 41 per cent, according to a survey from cloud video platform provider Grabyo.
According to the report, online paid streaming services for sports have now surpassed broadcast, with over three in five sports viewers paying for a streaming service compared with under half who view through pay broadcast TV services.
The number of sports viewers globally who don’t pay for any type of service has meanwhile halved from around 20 per cent in 2019.
Some 79 per cent of sports fans surveyed said they would switch to streaming platforms only if they could.
The survey also found that 53 per cent of sports fans that pay for video services were considering cutting the cord by 2024, and that the number of fans paying for streaming services exclusively now amounts to 45 per cent of the total.
According to the report, sports fans are turning to smart TV to watch video, with 56 per cent using smart TVs – the same proportion that use smartphones to view video – compared to 23 per cent using traditional TVs and 23 per cent using cable or pay TV set-tops. Only 20 per cent use streaming devices to watch.
In the UK, Germany and France, around three quarters of sports fans said they would watch sports exclusively on streaming platforms if they could, rising to 85 per cent in Spain and 83 per cent in Italy. In the UK and France, 38 per cent said they would pay the equivalent of US$25 a month to watch sport on a streaming platform, rising to 45 per cent in Germany, and 46 per cent in Spain. In Italy, 37 per cent said they would pay this amount. Social media was used by over half of respondents in all these countries to watch sport, with Spain seeing the highest use of social media at 64 per cent.
Elsewhere in the world, in the US, 64 per cent said they would watch sports on streaming platform exclusively, with 37 per cent willing to pay up to US$25 a month. In India, some 94 per cent of those surveyed said they would watch sport exclusively on streaming platforms, with 37 per cent willing to pay the equivalent of US$7.
