Our Consumption of Sports Content
A look at the reasons behind and the future ahead
This is my friend’s message to me when Max got pole position on last season’s final day. Would you believe it if I told you that she started watching F1 midway through last season?
She’s hooked by everything F1, and I don’t blame her. At a time when all broadcasters and sports are trying to capture the attention of the viewers, Netflix & F1 were able to come up with Drive to Survive: taking fans to the behind-the-scenes life of drivers and teams as they go around the globe in the intense world that is Formula 1. The same friend even wrote an article on this: I don’t think I can ever miss an F1 Grand Prix now. Go give it a read!
And while traditional F1 fans will tell you that it’s too focused on the drama, and they may be right, the truth is that it doesn’t matter. There were sports docuseries before D2S, but none of them had quite the same impact on transforming an entire sport. People who didn’t watch any sport before watch D2S because the drama is just so relatable, with characters like those you would expect in reality TV shows (no, I won’t name anyone). It’s made the lines between sport and entertainment blurry. Hard-core sports fans probably hate this, but the viewership, and therefore the money, is only going up.
Don’t worry, this isn’t another article on Drive to Survive, there have been far too many of those already. Instead, I’ll try to look at and answer some other questions. How is our consumption of sports changing? Could Netflix make the switch to live sports? What is the future of sports consumption?
More than just the live event?
As you probably already know, Gen Z is hellbent on making sure that they’re responsible for the revolution of every industry possible. Look at the use of social media apps. These are the numbers while we’re watching sports, and I’m not surprised at all. I watch a lot of sports and am tweeting about and discussing what’s happening with other fans all the time. There is a huge buildup to events on these social media apps, followed by discussion while the sport is live and then again a lot more discourse after the event is over.
We’ve seen a huge surge of BTS content (behind the scenes, not the boy band) by teams and athletes on apps like TikTok and Instagram. This further highlights that the demand for content related to a live event is almost the same as for the live event itself. Content unrelated to the live event (like docuseries) is not far behind. They also play a big role when it comes to attracting new fans to the sport, as we already saw with Drive to Survive. The results attributed to a study by Nielsen Sports showcase just that.
And this explains best why Netflix and the production company behind Drive to Survive, Box to Box Films, are teaming up again for D2S styled documentaries that will go behind the scenes on the PGA Tour, the ATP, and the WTA tours. Covering the major tournaments in both Golf and Tennis, these documentaries could potentially go a long way in increasing the popularity of the sports and driving up viewership around the world.
The results above, however, along with the production of these documentaries serve as an indicator that Netflix will not be entering the live sports area for the time being. They recognize the value that content related to sports has, and is sticking to this, instead of going after live sports like Apple, Amazon & Disney. While this could change, licensing deals for live sports are far too expensive and stray away from what Netflix fundamentally wants to offer: on-demand and advertisement-free content. Most sports are also far too fragmented by region to add value. An argument can be made for niche and worldwide sports like F1, though. For everything Netflix has done for the sport, the benefits are reaped by their direct rivals, Walt Disney Co. which owns ESPN, who in turn have the licensing deal to broadcast F1 races in the US. Netflix can look to exploit the value that they are responsible for creating if they were to have the license for sports which gained popularity as a result of their documentaries.
The Ultimate Sports Bar, and Going Beyond
Even when I’m not watching a game, I’m on Twitter the entire time. If I’m stuck in a class or have social commitments, Twitter acts as my relief for live sports content, getting constant updates on whatever is happening. For me, it’s the ultimate sports bar, giving a lot of us the feeling of being together even when we’re watching matches from our homes.
One of the images above spoke about the activities we engage in while watching live sports, in particular apps and social media platforms. With jobs and studies and traveling and everything else, a lot of us are not always free to watch live sports. Add to that, for a lot of the Gen Z population, live sporting formats have become too long and boring, and the barriers to entry to watch live sports have become too high. This isn’t just me saying this. A study conducted by Morning Consult shows that the numbers are reducing for the Gen Z population, and a lot of the time they are okay with just the important updates.
While this is another reason for the rise of sports documentaries, the mobile platform Buzzer is taking things into its own hands to deliver the ‘exciting moments’ that we’re always discussing on Twitter.
Buzzer tries to draw in its subscribers by notifying them of when an important moment is happening and allows them to reach the live broadcast by just a swipe of the notification and a tiny paywall. Imagine being at work and getting a notification right before THAT final lap at Abu Dhabi. Not only that, Buzzer intends to add the other services that people watching live sports are interested in: betting services and stats & insights. Buzzer says that it intends to learn as much as it can about the user through accounts like Twitter, and give personalized notifications, also based on team preferences. Furthermore, if there are events in a game that particularly interest you, for example regarding a bet you’ve placed and already informed Buzzer, you would get an alert for that.
This, for me, is the future of sports consumption. Not only is the app removing the barriers for entry that exist for young fans such as myself, but is also combining with OTT platforms and other services to make sure that I can stay at one place and get to watch what matters to me even if I’m stuck at work. Personalization of content for me, what more could I ask for? While this is just one example of the same, we can expect a lot more focus on this.
With only 10 days to go for the new season of Drive to Survive, I can’t believe I’m so excited even though I know everything that’s going to happen, and this is a result of the way our consumption of sports has changed over the years. Are you as excited as I am?
