Sporting rights to drive annual digital content revenues to $250BN
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Joseph O'Halloran
| 05 February 2019

A study from Juniper Research has found that global consumer spend on digital content will reach $250 billion in 2019, an increase of $23 billion year-on-year.

Somewhat inevitably, the Digital Content Business Models: OTT & Operator Strategies 2019-2023 research found that subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) services will be a key driver of growth after the efforts of players such as Amazon, Facebook and Twitter in acquiring sporting rights in the last few years. Juniper believes that worldwide reach and significant subscriber numbers of these players position them as effective partners for sporting tournament and leagues aiming to increase viewership.

The report also found that research found that growth in video will be driven by continued content spend by OTT players such as Netflix, Amazon and Apple, whose respective budgets were calculated to be $8 billion, $5 billion and $1 billion in 2018.

Looking forward, the Digital Content Business Models: OTT & Operator Strategies 2019-2023 report made particular note of Amazon’s acquisition of a small rights package for English Premier League football. It argued that Amazon would essentially be using the package to test the water for larger, potentially exclusive, bids in the future in both Europe and the US, by gauging the level of viewership among its Prime and non-Prime members.