This week, The Athletic, which is owned by the New York Times, released a survey of college football fans. In the survey, they looked at their favorite networks, announcers, and more, all related to college football. According to a survey from The Athletic, YouTube TV is the favorite streaming service for sports fans according to the survey of over 3,100 people.
YouTube TV is so popular it is almost tied with cable TV, according to the survey. Cable TV represented 37.2% of college football fans, and YouTube TV was 37.1%. YouTube TV was more popular than Hulu + Live TV, DIRECTV STREAM, Fubo, and Sling TV combined, according to this survey.
Here is how the survey results came in:
Cable: 37.2 percent
YouTube TV: 37.1 percent
Hulu + Live TV: 8 percent
DirecTV Stream: 5.2 percent
Antenna: 2.8 percent
Fubo: 2.3 percent
Sling: 2.2 percent
All others: Less than 1 percent
Sports has long been seen as the last best hope of cable TV to hold on to subscribers. Now it seems YouTube TV’s multiview abilities, and NFL Sunday Ticket has helped YouTube TV grow with sports fans.
The poll also asked if college football fans have ever subscribed to ESPN+ or Peacock to watch exclusive games. According to the survey, 61.5% said no, and 38.5% said yes. This comes as a growing number of games have become streaming only through paid services like ESPN+ and Peacock. This season marks the first time a handful Big 10 games will stream exclusively on Peacock.
It seems that the days of cable TV dominating sports are starting to come to an end. Increasingly, sports fans are happy with streaming or their antenna vs cable TV.