According to a study, sports are the most popular among livestreamers.

 

According to a Parks Associates survey, events that are streamed live on the internet are becoming more popular among internet households, particularly live sports.

According to the research "Livestreaming: The Next Hot Video Market," more than 40% of US internet households have streamed material in the last three months. A streaming sports event was being watched by more than three out of every five homes (61 percent).

According to the report, consumers who livestream spend about half of their online video time viewing live events.

"Historically, live sports programming has fared well," Parks Contributing Analyst Eric Sorensen, Sr. remarked.

However, he told that "pre- and post-event programming does not do nearly as well in terms of ratings as the actual event itself." "These statistics are applicable to both linear television and live streaming platforms."

"Sports are popular because they matter when they are live and significantly less when they are seen afterwards," Michael Pachter, managing director for stock research at Wedbush Securities in Los Angeles, added.

"You don't care about a baseball game that finished 12 – 2 or a football game that went 49 – 14, and viewing a replay is pointless," he told. "Some lopsided wins may have value if records are broken — Brady's 500th touchdown or a no-hitter in baseball — but they are generally worth a lot less if seen after the fact."

Sorensen highlighted to Chasing Eyeballs that as more rights become available, live sports content is transferring to web platforms.

"Numerous streaming services continue to outbid one another for highly sought-after sports media rights," he added. "Sports fans don't want to miss out on 'water cooler' moments with their favourite teams."

Professional sports leagues also don't want spectators to miss out on key occasions. "The leagues want to be where their fans are, which is online these days," said Michael Goodman, head of digital media strategies at Strategy Analytics, a worldwide research, consultancy, and analytics organisation.

"Streaming provides them with other revenue sources," he said. "Amazon pays a lot of money for Thursday Night Football." Streaming is also pushing up rights prices since it introduces new rivals."

Sports, according to Michael Inouye, a principal analyst at ABI Research, have always been the most important driver of livestreaming owing to the nature of the content, size of the audience, and market potential.

"Latency was an issue with live broadcasting," he told. "In the past, OTT [over-the-top] services lagged well behind live broadcasts." A normal live broadcast is six to eight seconds behind a live event, whereas livestreaming is 30 to 45 seconds behind or more."

"Streaming provides them with other revenue sources," he said. "Amazon pays a lot of money for Thursday Night Football." Streaming is also pushing up rights prices since it introduces new rivals."

Sports, according to Michael Inouye, a principal analyst at ABI Research, have always been the most important driver of livestreaming owing to the nature of the content, size of the audience, and market potential.

"Latency was an issue with live broadcasting," he told. "In the past, OTT [over-the-top] services lagged well behind live broadcasts." A normal live broadcast is six to eight seconds behind a live event, whereas livestreaming is 30 to 45 seconds behind or more."

"Now we're seeing more live streaming achieving the same broadcast thresholds — under 10 seconds — making this sort of content more fair with traditional broadcast channels," he explained.

Netflix has the upper hand.

According to Inouye, live sports streaming is increasing as more fans cut the cable cord. "Securing distribution rights is the most difficult obstacle, but streaming is increasingly being included in new partnerships and talks, and as direct to consumer continues to develop, we'll see more material moving through streaming channels," he added.

"Strong growth in video advertising in streaming markets is also a big driver in introducing sports and other live streaming content to a wider audience," he said. "It's still not at traditional broadcast levels, but it's now regarded as a critical supplemental channel."

According to Neil Macker, an equities analyst with Morningstar, certain web platforms consider livestreaming as a method to gain a competitive advantage. "To differentiate themselves, organisations competing with Netflix have begun adding live streaming to bundles, not only here in the United States, but also overseas,"

Netflix, which is allegedly considering a livestreaming strategy, may not be able to ignore its competitors' activities for long.

"Netflix is paying greater attention to streaming since it is struggling to compete with corporations with large troves of intellectual property, such as Disney and Warner Bros." "It might be a way to diversify a little," said Ross Rubin, chief analyst at Reticle Research, a consumer technology consultancy business based in New York City.

"It's also worth noting, given the current debate of Netflix introducing an advertising layer, that live events — notably news and sports — generally have advertising attached with them," he told.

"How much investment livestreaming will receive is doubtful, though, given Netflix's desire to cut back on expenses and be more economically responsible," he said.

A Significant Chance

Hulu with Live TV, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+, according to Sorensen, are significant providers that now provide live streaming services, threatening Netflix's top position in the OTT ecosystem.

"It's also worth noting, given the current debate of Netflix introducing an advertising layer, that live events — notably news and sports — generally have advertising attached with them,"

"How much investment livestreaming will receive is doubtful, though, given Netflix's desire to cut back on expenses and be more economically responsible," he said.

"Netflix looks to be suffering from greater costs and reduced viewership as a result of more competition and behavioural shifts as individuals leave their homes." added Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT, a Hayward, California-based technology advice business.

"livestreaming popular events might help the corporation boost its riches."

Netflix is not for you.

Netflix, according to Pachter, would fail badly in livestreaming.

"Live streaming is scheduled, whereas Netflix is on-demand," he stated. "Its clients will never identify it with live events, and I believe it will abandon the notion after playing with it and failing."

"Netflix is clutching at straws." "Its brand isn't established around livestreaming," said Mark N. Vena, president and lead analyst at San Jose-based SmartTechResearch.

"I believe many of Netflix's faults are self-inflicted wounds," he told. "Livestreaming isn't going to bring them out of their quagmire."

"The amount of stuff available to the ordinary user is overwhelming, yet Netflix is behaving as if it's 2010, not 2022," he remarked. "The amount of material available to customers is orders of magnitude greater than it was 10 to 12 years ago, when Netflix didn't have any competition."

"They now have a lot more competitors," he added. "They won't be able to broadcast their way out of that issue."