The news: Sports fragmentation is becoming an advertising problem.
- As sports rights increasingly split across networks, streamers, and FAST services, 26% of fans say they frequently can’t find the game they want to watch, per new Gracenote data.
- That figure grows to 35.6% among fans between 18 and 34.
- 18.5% say they spend 11 minutes or more searching for specific games.
That means marketers paying premiums for live sports inventory risk losing impressions when viewers struggle to find the games carrying their ads. Fragmented distribution also makes it harder to reliably locate sports audiences across platforms.
Sports fragmentation mounts: Advertisers are already navigating a complex mix of platforms to reach sports audiences. Gracenote’s data shows that fans are struggling to navigate that same landscape.
- Nearly 38% of the US population will watch sports on a digital platform next year, per our forecast, underscoring the growing importance of streaming for reaching sports audiences.
- But no single streamer dominates sports distribution. Game rights are split across platforms, as is investment. Prime Video leads with 27% of worldwide spending, followed by DAZN (22%), YouTube TV (14%), Paramount+ (8%), and Netflix (5%), according to Ampere Analysis.
- That dispersion explains why fans are struggling to locate games—and why advertisers can’t rely on a small number of platforms to consistently capture broad sports audiences.