It looks like gambling is coming to ESPN: Disney is reported to be close to striking a deal with sportsbook DraftKings.

Amazon’s $1 billion-a-year Thursday Night Football bet appears to be paying off, drawing record Prime sign-ups and reinforcing advertisers’ confidence in Amazon’s streaming tech. Once a pillar of pay TV, live sports have become the next big thing in streaming.

Streamers won't sacrifice their brands for sports rights: Disney is keeping gambling at arm’s length while Apple and Amazon run from a Saudi golf deal.

With growing subscription and advertising revenues, digital video’s future remains bright. But there are numerous questions that will affect its development.

The return of live sports produced a flurry of licensing activity from broadcast networks and streaming services—including digital video, social, and ecommerce platforms. It also reignited concerns about the sustainability of pricing models for sports video and TV.

The NFL ensures more touchdowns for streamers: A new set of 11-year rights deals will make more football available on streamers, but distribution will remain tied to linear TV for the time being.

As more viewers leave traditional TV packages for streaming alternatives, there is a heightened interest in how much money is being spent on video subscriptions and which companies are benefiting from changes in consumer viewing patterns.

In 2021, the biggest US beneficiary of the streaming bonanza will be Disney. After a plethora of streaming competitors launched in 2020, Netflix still added a substantial number of subscribers. Equally as impressive as Netflix’s sustained dominance was Disney+’s ability to quickly gain viewers. These developments show there’s room for multiple services to thrive in this fast-growing market.

Following a strong launch in November 2019, Disney+ is on track to surpass $4 billion in US subscription revenues by 2022. In its first full year, Disney+ has grown rapidly, spurred by in-demand content and stay-at-home orders. In fact, the service will help The Walt Disney Co. reach Netflix’s share of the market by 2022, according to the inaugural eMarketer OTT subscription revenue forecast by Insider Intelligence.

Most advertisers have pulled back their spending, but streaming services are marketing themselves as heavily as ever.

According to our latest estimates for over-the-top (OTT) video services in the US, Disney+ will have 72.4 million users this year, representing 32.1% of OTT viewers.

Esports viewership has not caught up to the media hype – but there could be upcoming growth opportunities.

Sports are on hold in the US due to the coronavirus pandemic, but digital live sports viewership will still rise more than 14% this year thanks to continued organic growth and accelerated cord-cutting.

Not being able to experience live sports at this time, US adults are turning to other alternatives. While these choices vary from sports documentaries to esports competitions, recent data from Morning Consult found that US adults are just as interested in news coverage of the pandemic’s impact on sports as they are on the games themselves.

Advertisers are making significant investments in connected TV as the TV landscape becomes more fragmented.

More people are leaving pay TV for digital alternatives, as TV networks increase their subscription costs and end promotional prices.

Ad dollars and viewers are pouring into digital video platforms as the TV industry continues to lose subscribers.

eMarketer analyst Ross Benes and vice president of content studio Paul Verna discuss the potential impact of Disney’s new streaming bundle. They also explain why the CBS/Viacom merger matters, where Americans like the stream video and UK media regulations.

US advertisers are committing more dollars upfront for linear TV and digital video, however the percentage of digital video ads being sold programmatically continues to increase.