Mexico fans check their phones during the Russia 2018 FIFA World Cup match between Mexico and Sweden in Russia. (Photo by Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)
Sports fans flocked to streaming platforms to watch major sporting events in 2018, with the World Cup, the NFL, Winter Olympics, March Madness and the Masters golf tournament contributing the most.
An annual report from trend tracker Conviva revealed the growth in streaming of live sports. Conviva’s data was collected by tracking algorithms embedded within three billion video apps, and recorded one trillion data events per day.
The World Cup drove the largest global spike among sports with viewing hours up 29 percent on a single day during the group stage of the month-long tournament. World Cup streaming overall resulted in a 12 percent increase in global viewing hours. The Winter Olympics produced a daily increase in viewership of 26 percent worldwide.
NFL viewership also created large, global spikes of up to 15 percent on Sundays during the season, while the NCAA basketball tournament and the Masters golf tournament drove up to 10 percent and 12 percent increases, respectively, in viewership worldwide.
“For providers who look to recoup lost dollars as viewers move away from traditional broadcast TV, streaming offers a bastion for sports,” wrote Conviva in the report. “Streaming has inherent flexibility, including distribution and access via multiple channels such as social media platforms like Facebook, sub-season package options down to a partial game, and niche content catering to specialty interests.”
Overall, global adoption of streaming accelerated in 2018, with viewing hours up 89 percent over the year earlier. A number of major brands also launched streaming services targeted at sports fans in 2018, including ESPN.
Widely publicized streaming issues in sports, such as when Amazon Prime glitched during the U.S. Open tennis tournament, or when DAZN glitched during soccer tournaments in Italy, have, though, eroded viewer confidence. Abandonment rates rose seven percent over 2017, as streamers grew fed up with poor quality and exited streams.
Higher expectations mean that the platforms hosting streams of live sporting events may be pressured to improve quality, particularly given the fragmented and competitive marketplace in which they operate.
