The news: The battle for live sports rights is intensifying as networks use marquee events to drive record audiences, unlock massive advertising impressions, and expand distribution.
- Early viewing of this year’s FIFA World Cup averaged 6.7 million on English-language platforms, according to Nielsen data cited by Mediapost—over two times the two-day total average of 2.6 million recorded in 2022.
- Over the tournament’s first two days, iSpot estimates national TV ad revenues approached $12 million, with commercials generating 1.4 billion impressions, per Mediapost.
- ESPN and ABC saw the most-watched NBA Finals event since 1998 last week, with Game 5 averaging 24.5 million viewers and peaking at 33 million, per Nielsen Big Data + Panel and cited by ESPN. The series overall averaged over 20 million viewers across five games.
- Media and entertainment companies are responding to audience surges by chasing other live sports events rights. CNBC announced Wednesday plans to simulcast 11 WNBA games in the current season as part of a media rights agreement between the league and CNBC parent company Versant; matches will also be available on Versant’s USA Network.
The trend: Live sports are becoming even more valuable as media companies search for programming that can still deliver mass reach and outsized advertising exposure in a fragmented media environment.