Report: Live sports rights costs still rising
March 22, 2023
By Chris Forrester
The world’s top 15 sports leagues will benefit from still-rising costs worth $66.9 billion (€62.1bn) in global media rights by 2028, and $88 billion by 2033, according to a report from Rethink Research.
More so than any other content vertical, live sports seems to be the definitive means by which our industry values a video service. With live sports comes a captive fanbase that are willing to jump through hoops to watch the games, as well as one or two zeitgeist moments of the calendar year which will draw astonishing traffic to whichever service is playing host, states the report.
The study cautions that in some cases the actual cost of popular sports rights are “clouded by hysteria and hype” but nevertheless between 2014 and 2023, Media Rights Revenues (MRRs) for the Top 15 sports leagues has more than doubled, growing to $43.8 billion this year.
“More so than any other content vertical, live sports seems to be the definitive means by which our industry values a video service. With live sports comes a captive fanbase that are willing to jump through hoops to watch the games, as well as one or two zeitgeist moments of the calendar year which will draw astonishing traffic to whichever service is playing host,” states Rethink TV.
The report says: “We predict that the MRR of the Top 15 Leagues will grow from $43.8 billion in 2023 to reach $67 billion in 2028, at a CAGR of 8.87 percent. All 15 leagues will see growth in their MRRs over the next five years, although to widely varying extents. Major League Baseball (MLB) will see the slowest growth, at a CAGR of just 1.98 percent over the next five years, while the National Basketball Association (NBA) is set to grow at a CAGR of 26.30 percent, reaching $13.5 billion in 2028.”
Rethink Research adds that with the entry of OTT streamers, and the “desperation” of pay-TV platforms who see their legacy sports contracts as the final hurdle preventing their dubious customers from churning exclusively to the streamers, and the result is a rapidly inflating rights market with no end in sight.