If you watch a game on streaming, you could be anywhere from 30 to 60+ seconds behind the action. Latency on streaming is as much as four times worse than it is on linear TV. You might be seeing the kicker miss a field goal, but that kick actually happened almost a full minute ago.
Latency measured during the Super Bowl found that the latency problem could be more than a full minute. This issue isn’t just a system glitch, it’s a fundamental business problem.
Live sports might be the jewel in the crown of every major media company, but what happens when the real time nature of sports betting, advertising and social media interaction eat away at profits and ruin viewer experience?
The New Viewer Experience Needs Less Lag, Not More
In the world of linear sports, everyone saw the game with about a 15-20 second delay. A decade ago when most live sports were seen on linear channels, the viewing experience was simpler - people more or less just watched the game.
Now that streaming is taking over, we’re actually seeing a moment where viewer experience is moving backwards. The huge lag on streaming is in direct conflict with changes that have happened to how people watch the game, namely the huge increase in fantasy and sports betting, social multitasking and targeted advertising.
Betting Can Beat the Lag
The sports betting market grew more than 22% last year to $16.96 billion. One of the biggest growth opportunities in sports betting is microbetting. Before, most best would be placed before the game and would focus on the final score. With microbetting, fans make bets during the game on individual plays and payers. Microbetting relies completely on the fact that everyone is experiencing the game as it is played.
With a large lag, people with a lag at home can’t participate in the bet at all. The game and the play are long gone. Not only does streaming lag hamper the ability for fans to bet from home, it creates a window of opportunity for people to take advantage of knowledge other people don’t yet have.
Kalshi is a CFTC-regulated prediction market platform that processed more than $1 billion in trading volume during Super Bowl 2026, an increase of 2,700% from the year before. The increase is not just based on a natural rise in sports betting popularity. Much like high speed financial trading that relied on shorter cables between them and the trade, sports betters actually bought TV antennas to shave fractions of a second off their data compared to streamers.
Viewers don’t like latency, and its impact is worse on streaming than linear. A report from EMARKETER found that 80% of people find the latency on streaming content annoying. Sports fans are willing to switch to another platform if they feel like they are behind the action.
The Trade-Off No Publisher Wants to Make
Latency is a business problem for publishers that cuts at the heart of their technology foundation. Streaming provides advertisers with ad targeting, which requires data, dynamic ad insertion and other logic that takes time to process. Every ad decision adds to the latency of a game, but it also contributes to the ability to sell inventory to advertisers.
The tradeoff is not ideal, but it’s a fundamental business decision that media companies need to face. Ignore the lag and prepare to see frustrated viewers flee to other platforms. Focus on eliminating the lag and alienate brands who want to be able to target and personalize their ads.
While these are two opposing sides of a single business problem, it’s not entirely a zero sum game.
The Race Is On to Reduce the Lag
While sports betting insiders are investing in schemes to take advantage of the lag, media companies should be focused on closing it. For the sake of protecting the viewer experience and to stay relevant in a real-time world, the streaming lag needs to go.
Media companies can use newer low-latency protocols and new ad serving technology that eliminates a lot of the lag. Similar to the financial industry, media companies could stand to upgrade to edge servers for faster delivery.
In addition to more advanced last-mile delivery, rights holders and distribution platforms can “reduce latency further up the video chain through more closely connected production and playout workflows to achieve measurable improvements without sacrificing reliability.” They can also use forecasting and sales scenario planning to protect key inventory placements from time consuming ad insertion.
Streaming has been a boon to the media world, igniting a technical arms race across major media companies that were stuck in a linear silo for years. While we’re already deep into streaming adoption across household viewers, we’re just beginning to see how media companies will evolve their offering to win audiences and deliver the best possible experiences.
