Almost three quarters of sports fans expect bad service when they’re watching via a streaming service.
According to a survey by YouGov, on behalf of US company Phenix, 72 per cent of respondents said they expect problems while watching a game.
The report also found that found 64 per cent expect buffering issues, 42 per cent expect delays, 32 per cent expect poor picture quality and 30 per cent expect loss of service.
As a result, 63 per cent of sports watchers said they were reluctant to sign up or re-subscribe to live sports streaming platforms in 2018, with 34 per cent saying they would think about cancelling their service because of the poor experience.
“It’s apparent the ‘live’ streaming industry is fundamentally broken and latency issues are becoming a big, loud problem,” said Jed Corenthal, CMO of Phenix,
“Sports fans aren’t going to stand for this and have the potential to be the primary voices calling for the industry to rethink what it means to truly deliver a game in real-time. They’re considering cancelling their subscriptions or just not signing up for new ones at all next year. Hopefully, these findings will serve as a wake-up call that finally convinces streaming platforms to solve the latency issues plaguing the market,” Corenthal said.
“With so many major sporting events coming up in early 2018 – the Olympics, the Super Bowl, the World Cup – there’s incredible opportunity for franchises, broadcasters and streaming platforms to finally get the live stream right,” Corenthal said.
