Netflix is reportedly planning to join the growing number of services that want to get into live sports streaming. If this happens, they would join Paramount+, Peacock, and Max which plan to grow their sports subscriptions.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Netflix is working on live streaming a celebrity golf event. This will be Netflix’s first live sporting event as sports have become a savior for both traditional cable TV networks and streaming.
This celebrity golf event hopes to bring together starts from Netflix’s PGA Full Swing Show and its F1 shows. This show would see professional golfers and drivers fight it out on the golf course.
Recently Netflix has been moving into live events with some standup specials and a Love is Blind reunion. Netflix has had some early growing pains with these new live events, but Netflix shows no signs of backing down from its plans to grow into live sports.
Netflix seems to be careful testing the waters with live sports. Rather than signing up a major sporting group Netflix is testing out a celebrity sporting event to test the viewership and work out the bugs.
Sports has become even more critical in the world of cord cutting. Increasingly it is one of the few areas that consumers are willing to watch TV live, including the ads. This has driven up the ad revenue for sporting events leaving TV networks and streaming services looking for more sporting events to air.
Sports on streaming services have been growing recently. Peacock this fall will add Big Ten sporting events exclusively on Peacock. The NFL has also agreed to air two NFL games, including a playoff game, exclusively on Peacock.
Warner Bros. Discovery has also announced plans to add sports to their new Max streaming service. Paramount+ has been putting sports from CBS streamed live into its service.
Increasingly sports is being seen as a safe space for both streaming services and TV networks looking for viewers and ad revenue.