Ampere Analysis has released details of its predicted sports rights spend for 2025.
According to the company’s research, streamers will reach a combined $12.5 billion this year, equivalent to a fifth of global sports rights spend. Growth will be fuelled by the increased sports budgets of both Amazon and Netflix, said Ampere, although DAZN will remain the world’s biggest spender on sports rights, accounting for a third of streaming spend on sports.
Ampere’s research uncovered a number of other key findings:
- Amazon, the second highest streaming spender, will increase its share from 18 to 23 per cent following its NBA 2025-26 season rights acquisition.
- YouTube TV remains third, its NFL Sunday Ticket worth a reported $2 billion per season.
- Following a three-year agreement to show Christmas Day NFL games and a $500 million per annum contract with WWE, Netflix has become the fourth biggest streaming investor in sports rights.
Sport remains a valuable subscription driver, with Netflix gaining around 1.5 million sign-ups following the Tyson/Paul boxing match and nearly 700,000 for its Christmas Day NFL deal, said Ampere.
Peacock gained 2 million subscribers over its NFL play-off game weekend and Paramount+ gained 2.4m on the day of the 2024 Super Bowl.
Danni Moore, senior analyst at Ampere Analysis said, “Over the last five years, streamers’ share of investment in sports rights has increased for two main reasons. The first is the growth of DAZN as a specialist sport streamer. In particular, DAZN has driven investment in top tier sports rights in major European markets such as Germany, Italy, Spain and most recently France.
“Then, as streaming nears saturation point, general entertainment platforms are adjusting their content investment strategies and have turned to sports as a key part of their subscription growth plans. They are recognising the benefit of acquiring rights to major season-long competitions for both subscriber acquisition and retention. Netflix, Peacock and Paramount all saw the commercial value of acquiring key sporting tournaments and one-off events in 2024 and we expect more of the same in 2025.”
