Platform adds live sport to premium tier

A streaming platform has secured live sport rights for its premium tier, its first significant move into live event programming after years of building a catalogue almost entirely from scripted and documentary content.

Live is the retention play

Live sport solves a problem catalogue content cannot: it gives subscribers a reason to keep paying in the weeks between prestige releases. Viewers cancel after finishing a series, but a weekly fixture creates an appointment that spans a whole season.

You cannot binge a live match and then cancel. That is the entire strategic case, and it is why rights costs keep climbing.

A sports media rights consultant

The cost is the catch. Live rights are expensive and the technical demands are unforgiving, since a stream that buffers during a decisive moment produces the kind of reaction a delayed drama release never will.