OTT Market for Sports Is Becoming Saturated, New Sports Innovation Lab Research Finds

The future success of over-the-top (OTT) providers will be reliant on subscriber conquesting (aka poaching) in light of a saturated market, according to research in Sports Innovation Lab’s latest report, “The Impact of Sports Fandom on the OTT Market,” available for download HERE.

Per Sports Innovation Lab data, Comcast / NBCUniversal’s Peacock has emerged as the early king of conquest in this crowded landscape: As of March 31, 2023, the OTT subscription service had captured about 30% of the new sports-streaming market.

To derive this conclusion, Sports Innovation Lab examined the purchase data of sports fans from January 1, 2021 to March 31, 2023, focusing on trends from eight major streaming platforms (DirecTV Stream, Hulu + Live TV, FuboTV, Sling TV, Peacock, Paramount+, ESPN+, and YouTube TV). The study results are a clear picture of an OTT market facing increased competition and a shrinking pool of fans who have never paid for streaming – leaving providers to compete and conquest.

Additional findings from the data include:

• Peacock’s top source of conquests were former DirecTV Stream and Paramount+ subscribers

• Amongst examined streaming platforms between Jan. 1, 2021 to March 31, 2023, only Peacock and Paramount+ grew in average monthly streaming signups by sports fans

Sports Innovation Lab’s detailed study on the purchasing habits of more than 50 million U.S. consumers also revealed several other key intelligence insights valuable to advertisers and platforms alike. Namely, Sports Innovation Lab re-established its advanced capability to:

• Identify the subscribers of more than 50 streaming services and the fans of more than 250 U.S. sports properties

• Detect subscription patterns that indicate the impact of new rights agreements, partnerships, promotional offers, and seasonality

• Detect subscription behaviors that differentiate between consumer acquisition, churn, retention, and conquesting

• Using Sports Innovation Lab Audiences, deterministically identify switchers to directly send them personalized communication

“Sports has become a beacon of hope for subscriber growth in an overly fragmented and saturated OTT market,” says Sports Innovation Lab CMO Gina Waldhorn. “The data on who those subscribers are, where they came from, and where they go – all through the lens of sports interest – will become the competitive advantage networks require to win.”

The release of “The Impact of Sports Fandom on the OTT Market” follows January’s public launch of the aforementioned Sports Innovation Lab Audiences, a powerful dataset for advertisers who want to acquire sports fans. The longitudinal, deterministic dataset utilizes transactional purchase data from more than 50 million U.S. consumers, refreshed weekly for an unprecedented view of active sports fans. It is the most scaled addressable sports-specific segment data available today and can be purchased on major data marketplaces (such as Snowflake Marketplace) for use across OTT channels, technology and media partners, agencies, and more.