This follows the arrival on Netflix of Gary Lineker\u2019s The Rest is Football<\/a> podcast, which digested World Cup action daily and will return twice a week during the season.<\/p>\n But anyone watching these shows won\u2019t see a single Premier League goal.<\/p>\n The domestic rights to broadcast live matches and highlights remain with Sky, TNT and the BBC, who pay a combined \u00a31.67 billion per year<\/a>.<\/p>\n UK broadcasters now stump up double that across all sports, with the genre making up 70% of all television spending<\/a>. Once Sky\u2019s big money deals in cricket and Formula 1 are added to its football outlay, it has by far the biggest bill<\/a>.<\/p>\n Yet even our free-to-air channels \u2013 BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 \u2013 now splash more on sport than any other genre of new, original programming, \u00a3700 million between them<\/a>. Sport\u2019s liveness means it is the last major form of communal viewing in our fragmented media world, and ever more important as the years go by.<\/p>\n So, why would streamers pay for sports programmes with no actual sport in them?<\/p>\n Sports events have gradually switched from being exclusive to TV to part of a landscape in which television co-exists with digital platforms. So, streamers have been incorporating more sport into their programming strategies.<\/p>\n Competition for our eyeballs is intense. In the UK last year, the average person spent four and a half hours a day<\/a> watching video at home. Most of it was on the box: 84% of in-home viewing was through the television set<\/a>, whether via broadcasters, streamers, or YouTube. Indeed, YouTube\u2019s biggest content increasingly resembles conventional TV.<\/p>\n Disney has long owned American sports media giant ESPN. But in the UK its streaming appeal has been based largely on access to content old and new from familiar global franchises such as Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars.<\/p>\n It does already show the women\u2019s Champions League, while Netflix claimed a record 108 million viewers<\/a> for the rather grim spectacle of influencer Jake Paul defeating 58-year-old former world heavyweight champion Mike Tyson in 2024.<\/p>\n Yet in the era of scheduling our own viewing, we\u2019re not really in the habit of turning to streamers for live, appointment-to-view television. Instead, they have experienced more consistent success in programming best described as \u201csports adjacent\u201d. Sports-themed documentaries have become a far cheaper way to attract and keep subscribers.<\/p>\n The triumph of the Formula 1: Drive to Survive docuseries, for example, has powered F1 back up the sporting grid. Its compelling behind-the-scenes storytelling, familiar from other Netflix shows, brought new fans closer to the action. Although the lower-speed thrills of the Netflix golf series Full Swing suggested not all sports are ready for their streaming close up.<\/p>\n With these prestige documentaries usually allowing sports and clubs to present a positive portrayal of what they\u2019re doing, the traditional role of sports reporters as the main narrators of sport has been eroded.<\/p>\n Instead, pundits such as Neville and fan creators including Goldbridge have the profile and style to keep viewers entertained \u2013 even if they are less likely than traditional media to offer the journalistic scrutiny that sporting institutions like Fifa need<\/a>.<\/p>\n Working with these personalities is the natural next frontier for streamers. The \u201calways on\u201d nature of regular podcasts helps create viewing routines, so customers have something new to watch whenever they go to the landing page.<\/p>\n The streaming market has hit saturation point from existing customers. More than two-thirds of UK households subscribed to at least one service last year, yet the figure of 68% was roughly as it was in 2021<\/a>. Winning over sports fans who balk at Sky\u2019s prices offers the potential for further growth.<\/p>\n As in any sporting event, there are winners and losers. Premier League football is one of only a handful of competitions with the global appeal to be worth the streamers\u2019 time and money. Other sports that were once staples of British screens, from county cricket<\/a> to swimming, have been pushed to the margins, struggling for attention in a sports media dominated by a smaller number of key events.<\/p>\n The growing profile of women\u2019s sport hasn\u2019t helped. As I argue in my forthcoming book Sports Journalism in the UK<\/a>, media attention has been concentrated on women\u2019s football<\/a>, cricket<\/a>, rugby union and tennis. Neville is not going to announce The Rest is Hockey.<\/p>\nA new way to engage with sport media<\/h2>\n
The power of the pundit<\/h2>\n
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