“If you thought you were paying a lot for your sports-TV package now, just wait until 2030. London-based research group Ampere Analysis forecasts global sports-media spending will jump 20 percent in the next five years, surpassing $78 billion. The culprits are the recent US deals for the likes of Major League Baseball and the National”, — write: www.hollywoodreporter.com
London-based research group Ampere Analysis forecasts global sports-media spending will jump 20 percent in the next five years, surpassing $78 billion. The culprits are the recent US deals for the likes of Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association, as well as the general emergence of new competition in the global streaming marketplace.
These new MLB and NBA deals alone will be responsible for nearly half ($36 billion) of that eye-popping total. And if the NFL renegotiates its exiting agreements, it’s gonna be an Oh-my-God situation, basically. Many of the National Football League’s current deals run until 2034, and with the league regularly touting how undervalued its already-massive TV deals are, Ampere expects initial conversations about renewals to begin as early as next year.
The sports-media rights market in Europe, where the Ampere analysts hail from, is a bit more predictable for them — and not just because it is more local. There, sports rights have actually faced some headwinds in recent bidding, but given the growing appeal of live sports for global streamers, those are likely winds of change. Plus, the FIFA World Cup and the Olympic Games will pique plenty of interest beyond our borders. Ampere anticipates sports-media rights spending over there will increase 17 percent from 2025 ($18.3 billion) to 2030 ($21.3 billion).
Cricket-obsessed Asia is expected to spend $9.9 billion in 2030, up from $7.2 billion in 2025.
NBC and Netflix are now television partners with MLB; ESPN had been previously, although it now has a diminished package of games. NBC nabbed ESPN’s national Sunday-nights games as well as its Wild Card playoffs rights. Netflix gets the Home Run Derby, MLB’s opening night game, and a revived “Field of Dreams” game next year in Dyersville, Iowa (where the 1989 Kevin Costner movie was filmed). Find all those details here.
And NBC is Roundball Rockin’ once again with the return of the NBA to its airwaves (and the introduction of the league to streamer Peacock). ESPN remains a preferred partner of the game; at the same time, newcomer Amazon Prime Video planted its flag at half court.
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