Q: This is the first time Disney has acquired the rights to broadcast live sports exclusively on Disney+ (excluding Disney+ Hotstar) - why now?

We have seen a number of deals recently where leading global streamers have made their first foray into live sports broadcasting – most notably Netflix buying the rights to the WWE and Apple striking a $2.5bn partnership with Major League Soccer (MLS) in the USA. This has come into the sports rights market at the same time as an increase in investment from longstanding existing players – such  Amazon’s $1bn per season domestic NFL rights deal in the US, or Google’s NFL Sunday Ticket. Now, Disney+ has entered the world of live sports broadcasting, acquiring the rights to the UEFA Europa League and Europa Conference League in Sweden and Denmark for the 2024-2027 cycle.

This increase in investment in live sport can be seen in the context of leading streamers starting to experience a slowdown in subscriber growth, together with market saturation in some of their bigger territories – with Disney+ and the Nordics being no exception to this. While a range of strategies are being employed by streaming platforms to counter the slowing subscriber uptake, such as cracking down on account sharing and introducing lower-cost ad-supported tiers, adjusting their content strategy – including sports content – is another way for services to tap into a new potential audience.

For Disney+, a strong brand and attractive back-catalogue of content helped drive early customer growth, with the platform highly successful at attracting specific demographics. Across all markets surveyed in Ampere’s Media – Consumer survey of internet users in Q1 2024, respondents with young children were 35% more likely to have access to Disney+ than the average respondent. But when it comes to other segments of the market, sports could serve as a powerful driver for subscriptions. Ampere survey data shows that 32% of sports fans across the 14 markets in Ampere’s Sport Consumer survey (Q4 2023) agree with the statement that they “only really care about watching sport – I don’t watch many TV series or films”; these fans are therefore likely to be uninterested by streaming services that do not cater to their specific interests. Indeed, household access to Disney+ is 22% lower among this segment of fans than the average sports fan. Along with other global streamers, therefore, Disney+ may be viewing live sport as an opportunity to attract new demographics to the platform and in turn re-ignite subscriber growth.

Q: How does this deal compare to the other recent investments by global streamers into live sports?

Whereas Netflix and Apple have acquired long-term rights to sports properties on a more global or multi-territory level, this Disney+ deal is more low-key in nature - buying the rights in just two neighbouring countries. In this respect, the deal more closely mirrors the way Amazon has historically invested in live sports, where it opportunistically targeted a series of single-market rights deals in some of its largest retail markets, such as its Premier League rights in the UK. 

However, in and of itself the deal is unlikely to attract significant attention in either Sweden or Denmark. The Europa League ranks 14^th and 21^st in terms of the proportion of internet users who are willing to pay to watch sports competitions in Sweden and Denmark respectively, meaning that the deal covers relatively low-value content for fans in the territory (the Europa Conference League ranks 44^th and 34^th in Sweden and Denmark respectively). In that regard, this deal is likely to have a lower impact for Disney+ than some of the recent agreements made by other streamers.

Instead, similarly to other recent investments, the deal should be seen as an opportunity for Disney+ to test out live sports – as opposed to being a significant strategic business move. It provides Disney+ with the chance to test live-streaming capabilities (for which it may enlist the help of Disney-owned sports broadcaster, ESPN, which does not currently have a presence in the Nordics) as well as identify any viewing trends from the production of games. As with most sports rights acquisitions from global entertainment streamers up to now, the deal signifies the intent to assess how live sport can play a role in the streaming strategy in years to come, rather than an attempt to drive immediate subscriber and revenue growth.

Q: Is this the start of a race for live sports rights across major streaming platforms?

It is unlikely that there will be a sudden rush for rights. Streamers have largely been careful up to now when selecting their sports rights, with investments – while considerable in size in absolute terms - accounting for a typically small proportion of their overall content spend. Netflix and Apple in particular, having locked into longer-term deals and partnerships for their rights, highlight that current deals mostly provide a chance to assess the performance of live sports and any opportunities for innovation in their content strategies.

Live sports rights can often be relatively expensive, and making these investments profitable has proven challenging at least to date, given the limitations around monetising the rights in the same way that traditional linear TV broadcasters have been able to through higher-cost subscriptions and premium channel carriage fees. With many streamers in the early stages of broadcasting sport and still developing an understanding of its strategic merits, this race for sports rights is likely to be a marathon, not a sprint.