For Now, Sports’ TV Approach Needs Both Linear and Streaming

Live sports appearing on streaming platforms is not new, yet its long-term prospects grow more promising by the day.

Over the weekend, Tubi scored an average-minute audience of 13.6 million for its free offering of the Big Game, despite the game primarily appearing on broadcast network Fox. On he one hand, you could infer that the Super Bowl is destined for streaming. On the other… the streaming tune-in could just be the latest sign that sports needs both streaming AND traditional linear TV for the foresseable future.

Another recent example: Following two years of residential exclusivity on Apple TV+, MLS Season Pass will also be offered through Comcast and DirecTV (in partnership with Apple), just like any other NBA League Pass/NHL Center Ice/MLB Extra Innings package would be.

Despite the advantages of Apple TV+’s exclusivity around MLS for the service, you could infer that sitting only on streaming (and a service without much sports content) gated the league off its ultimate growth curve with global stars like Lionel Messi suiting up every week. Apple clearly understood as much, and managed to grab new revenue streams from Comcast and DirecTV (though DTV already had a deal for bars/restaurants to air MLS games) while addressing a key shortcoming for sports streaming to-date: Local tune-in. Unlike other leagues’ out-of-market add-ons, the MLS deal includes local with no blackouts.

Apple’s adjustment to how it handles MLS isn’t novel, either. The NFL’s Thursday Night Football package may have headed to Amazon Prime exclusively a few years ago, yet Amazon and the league continue to air those games on linear in local markets each week as well.

For as much as live sports are seeing streaming as a growth area and one that provides additional revenues while traditional TV loses its foothold on the medium, it still needs linear to reach the maximum number of fans.

That’s not to say linear can exist without streaming, either. Parks Associates recently released figures stating that 46% of U.S. internet households are cord-cutters, while 12% are “cord-nevers.” Unless all of these viewers utilize over-the-air antennas (unlikely), linear TV programming isn’t just magically appearing in those living rooms. They need a delivery system, be it vMVPDs that carry OTA and cable nets or an SVOD service that airs the games locally, nationally or both.

There may come a time when streaming sports better address local audiences and there’s simply too many streaming-only sports audiences to hold things back any longer. But audience figures for events like the Super Bowl (124.3 million per iSpot numbers this year) show there’s still an overwhelming linear component to consider.

It’s why leagues and networks will use streaming in pieces, and now, why even a league that was all-in on streaming (MLS) appears to be backtracking slightly. Even the NBA’s landmark new media rights agreement goes far enough into streaming with Amazon that it feels different, but it’s also still very much built as a linear-first property — maybe even more so than it used to be — with ABC/ESPN and NBC.

That approach and Apple’s taking a half-step back toward linear with MLS games, though, shows that linear and streaming can’t be seen as experimental grounds for leagues and rightsholders anymore. As costly as it may be for some, the way forward needs to — equally — include both linear and streaming to make sure games are getting to all audiences however they watch.

Sports may have spent the last few years cutting themselves to pieces, but for the sake of TV — and live sports’ long-term growth - it may now need to focus on putting everything back together.