Sports streaming services have gained large popularity in recent years, offering sports fans a new way to watch their favorite games and teams from anywhere, at any time.
These services have revolutionized how fans consume live sports, providing a more flexible and convenient viewing experience.
While having several subscriptions can be expensive, rather than seeing it as a burden, this evolution of sports media can give viewers more freedom, better content and the power to choose exactly how and what they watch.
In my case and those who prefer watching less popular sports like field hockey or lacrosse, getting those multiple streaming platforms is another way to watch sports.
Traditional networks often prioritized only the biggest leagues, while smaller or international sports got little to no screen time. Now, services like FloSports provide access to underrepresented sports as mentioned before, according to its webpage.
The more services that exist, the more opportunities for coverage, especially for niche audiences.
Just this following year, FloWrestling had 127 million live minutes streamed, which resulted in a decade-long partnership with USA Wrestling giving the service exclusive access to 160 live events, according to an Aug. 19, 2024 The Mat article.
Another plus of having several subscriptions is the ability to cater to individual needs. Fans can pick and choose services that align with their interest, whether that’s the NFL, UFC, Premier League or college basketball.
If you’re a soccer fan, you can stick to Paramount+ and Peacock. If you're all about MMA, you can subscribe to UFC Fight Pass. You're not locked into paying for everything, but you can pay for what matters most to you.
Having multiple streaming services isn’t for a specific age group; around 29% of sports fans are 18-34 and are subscribed to three or more streaming services, according to an August 17, 2023 The Current article.
Several sports streaming platforms can also see the competition. Each service knows it has to bring value to retain subscribers – whether that means exclusive content, better stream quality, more features or flexible pricing.
A competitive environment can also benefit the viewer when it comes to the amount of coverage there is to a specific game.
If all sports were funneled into a single streaming monopoly, innovation would slow down and prices would likely increase unchecked. Multiple services keep each other in check and push one another to get better.
This increased competition doesn’t only help streaming services alone, but sports media as a whole from $14.64 billion in 2015 to nearly $30 billion in 2024, according to an Apr. 2, 2024 S&P Global article.
Only care about March Madness? Subscribe for a month and cancel afterward. Want to watch football from September to January? Easy. This flexibility means you’re not constantly paying for content you don’t use, and you can scale your subscriptions depending on your budget.
Rather than being a problem, having multiple sports-streaming subscriptions reflects a new era of personalized, accessible and competitive sports entertainment.
It gives fans more power to choose how they watch, what they pay for and which content they value most.
Far from being bad, it’s a sign that sports media is finally catching up to what fans want.
