Survey Reveals Streamers’ Dominance Over Media Sports Rights

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Report says driving factors are streaming's 'global reach' and data collection

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The rights to broadcast live sports, considered the Holy Grail of television, is expected to be dominated by global streaming services, according to a new report.

In the report, "Who WIll Control Sports Streaming in 2026?" from Looper Insights, 59 sports streaming professionals were surveyed. Nearly 41% said global streamers will hold the greatest structural power in sports media this year, narrowly ahead of sports leagues and rights holders at 39.4%.

Most of those (38.6%) say scale and global reach and a slightly smaller number (36.9%) cite audience data and insights were identified as the most important factors expected to shape the next cycle of sports rights negotiations.

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Although there are currently no official negotiations on the TV sports rights for the four largest sports leagues in the U.S., the NFL, whose media contracts expire in 2032, is seeking to renegotiate its contracts and specifically trying to get another $1 billion from CBS, as reported by sportspro.com today.

Nearly 41% of respondents in Looper’s survey said scale and global reach (38.6%) and audience data and insights (36.9%) were the most important factors expected to shape the next cycle of sports rights negotiations.

Other findings from the report:

  • 36.8% believe global streaming services with large-scale audience data are best positioned to benefit from AI-driven changes in sports media, compared with 17.9% who pointed to sports leagues.
  • 40.4% of industry professionals expect YouTube to evolve into a full operating system for sports media, though 38.3% believe the platform will face resistance and remain limited in live sports.
  • 38.6% say marquee sports events primarily create short-term subscription spikes, while 36.7% believe they mainly reinforce streaming services viewers already use rather than driving long-term subscriber growth.
  • Amazon Prime Video was identified as the streamer most likely to hold the strongest position in sports media by 2026, followed by Netflix and ESPN/Disney.

The National Association of Broadcasters is in the midst of its "Keep the Game On" public campaign to promote live sports on free over the air TV and tying it to its push to revise broadcast ownership rules.

Tom Butts
Tom Butts

Tom has covered the broadcast technology market for the past 25 years, including three years handling member communications for the National Association of Broadcasters followed by a year as editor of Video Technology News and DTV Business executive newsletters for Phillips Publishing. In 1999 he launched digitalbroadcasting.com for internet B2B portal Verticalnet. He is also a charter member of the CTA's Academy of Digital TV Pioneers. Since 2001, he has been editor-in-chief of TV Tech (www.tvtech.com), the leading source of news and information on broadcast and related media technology and is a frequent contributor and moderator to the brand’s Tech Leadership events.