In a world of increasingly volatile economies and changing consumer habits, live sports broadcasting has become one of the more reliable ways for companies to generate revenue.
Live sports – and entertainment – are one of the few industries whose financial success is unlikely to be significantly disrupted by artificial intelligence in the coming years.
This means that more and more companies are interested in buying the rights to show sporting events, requiring more TV subscriptions than ever before for fans who want to watch all the action.
For example, if a football fan in England wants to watch all the matches of the Premier League, Champions League and Scottish Premier League, he needs to subscribe to Sky Sports, TNT Sports, Amazon Prime and Premier Sports.
And they have to pay for an annual TV license to watch other matches on the BBC and ITV.
Without taking advantage of special offers, other sports may require more subscriptions and more money.
“Telling a fan that they only need to buy one subscription to see everything in one sport certainly helps,” says Pete Oliver, senior director of growth markets at DAZN, the global sports streaming service.
“If the sport is too fragmented, we’d say it’s not going to be a great proposition for the fan. [for us to be involved]and it probably won’t be a big commercial prospect for us.
“The price of entertainment [subscriptions] will generally increase over time.
“There’s natural inflation in the market, there’s a lot of competition for sports rights, athletes want more money and leagues want to do what’s right for them, and if they can pay more for content, they will.”