2026年体育行业六大关键趋势（英文版）.pdf

The year in sport:six key trends for 2026 Ampere Analysis 2026|2 01.Executive Summary 3 02.Generalist streamers are turbo-charging their sport strategies 4 03.Distribution models are changing,as direct-to-consumer(DTC)matures 10 04.European sponsorship revenue grows,while media rights fees stall 13 05.Changing audience demand is fuelling media rights disruption 17 06.US holds the cards to football(soccer)revenue growth 21 07.Regulation will impact Premier League sponsorship in 2026 26 Table of Contents Ampere Analysis 2026|3 Executive summary Were heading into 2026 on the back of a lacklustre macro environment,with linear broadcasters and streamers facing structural changes in the TV market which has implications across media rights and sponsorship.Ampere has identified some key trends for the year ahead which will have significant impacts on the industry.For free-to-air,commercial and pay TV broadcasters,sport is a key defensive asset for both subscriber retention and advertising revenue.However,as subscriber growth for streamers plateaus,generalist platforms*have increasingly been turning to sport as a way of driving consumer growth,through subscription and ad-tiers,in mature markets.However,this benefit has not been felt consistently by all rightsholders,and has been concentrated,mostly in the US.Those macro factors,and a lack of generalist streamer investment in Europe,is impacting distribution strategies.The absence of competition in France,for example,has led to Ligue 1 having to go direct-to-consumer domestically,thereby dramatically decreasing its broadcast revenue.In the US,however,football(or soccer)is going from strength to strength,and the 2026 FIFA Mens World Cup is hoping to capitalise on this from both a media rights and sponsorship perspective.The former has seen its values increase by 94%,while Ampere forecasts that the latter will bring in$2.2bn for FIFA,a growth of 23%from the previous tournament.In Brazil,this years tournament will once again return to CazTV,an influencer-led channel which is now challenging traditional broadcast for rights in the market and is expanding into Portugal in 2026.Distribution of live rights via influencers,as a means of reaching new audiences and providing alternate viewing experiences,grew in popularity last year with notable deals for the Bundesliga and Saudi Pro League.This is a trend that,if anything,will accelerate over the coming years.Influencers are also emerging as a rising force for new events.Influencer distribution deals have been the backbone of emerging competitions such as the Kings League,Queens League and Baller League,all of whom are looking to challenge the status quo.Sponsorship revenue is key to these new leagues,representing 90%of Baller Leagues revenue and 70%of Kings Leagues.The innovation of the challenger leagues and unique activation opportunities have already attracted brands such as Philips,Red Bull and O2.As the participating teams begin to sign deals independent of the leagues themselves,this will bring them into competition with more traditional rightsholders for sponsorship revenue.Sponsorship will be a hot topic in the English Premier League(EPL)this year with the gambling ban for Front of Shirt(FoS)deals beginning in the 2026/27 season.In the short term,club revenues will be impacted due to the large deal values associated with the asset(FoS),but in the medium to long term,gambling brands will be looking to redistribute that spend,albeit at lower levels than their current output.Assets with higher exposure,such as sleeve sponsorships,will be the main beneficiaries,with Ampere expecting a significant growth in the average deal value in the coming years.*i.e.Netflix,Amazon Prime Video,Disney+,Paramount+and Apple TV Ampere Analysis 2026|4 Generalist streamers are turbo-charging their sport strategies Streaming investment in sports is growing rapidly Global investment in sports rights by streamers continued to grow in 2025,from$11.3bn in 2024 up to$13.2bn,boosted by DAZNs$1bn FIFA Club World Cup deal,and is projected to reach$14.2bn in 2026.If we exclude the Club World Cup from the 2025 total,the 2026 projections represent a 16%year-on-year increase-in a year when the two largest global events-the FIFA Mens World Cup and Winter Olympics-will primarily be broadcast on linear TV in most markets(although it is likely that these quadrennial events will also be shown on rightsholders streaming platforms).It is clear,therefore,that growth in sports rights investment from pure-play streamers is predominantly organic,centred around ongoing,annual events outside of major,global tournaments.To look at which companies are driving this growth,it is first helpful to divide the streaming market into two categories:Global generalist streamers and Local streamers.Global generalist streamers are defined in this report as streaming services that do not specialise in sports only and are available across the majority of the largest global markets,specifically here comprising Netflix,Amazon Prime Video,Disney+,Paramount+and Apple TV.These services have been slow in their adoption of live sports rights compared to investment in other forms of content.This can be seen in their relative spending power across different forms of content;even by 2024,these generalist streamers accounted for 22.5%of all global original film and TV content,but just 4%of all sport spend.in global investment in sports rights is projected for 2026$14.2bn Source:Ampere Sports Media Rights*2026 values include only deals agreed to date 1.32.32.54.16.21.01.73.03.24.15.27.18.89.18.02017201820192020202120222023202420252026*Total global investment in sports rights by streaming services($bn)Global generalist streamersOther streamers Ampere Analysis 2026|5 Source:Ampere Sports Media Rights Ampere Analysis 2026|6 But this is growing rapidly,with generalist streamers increasingly accounting for a greater proportion of sport spend,as more services continue to prioritise sporting events.Based on deals agreed so far for 2026,Amazon will be the top streaming spender with a 27%share,investing$3.8bn in total,over half a billion more than last years top investor DAZN.Paramount+also moves into the top five highest spending streamers thanks to its new$1.1bn-a-year UFC deal.Overall,global generalist streamers will account for 44%of streaming spend on sports rights in 2026,up from 31%in 2025.Why are generalist streamers buying into sports now?Since peaking in 2020,global subscription OTT net additions have been slowing,driving many services to search for new ways to accelerate growth.One of the biggest changes to strategy has been that the largest generalist streamers have introduced ad-tiers.Netflix,for example,launched its ad-tier in Q4 2022,with many following suit within a year,and these ad-tiers serve to lower the price of entry for new customers,helping them to continue to add subscribers.In the past two years,a meaningful portion of the customer bases of these streamers have transitioned to an advertising model with 55%of Paramount+and 82%of Amazon Prime Video subscribers now on advertising tiers.This has in turn created new strategic imperatives for these players while previously the focus for revenue growth centred around the two main pillars of subscriber acquisition and subscriber retention,there is now a third imperative:maximizing advertising revenue,through ad-tier reach,increasing ad loads and by driving CPM growth.Live sports have become increasingly valuable to streamers because they impact all three of these strategic goals.Source:Ampere Markets Operators of global streaming spend on sports rights will come from generalist streamers in 2026,up from 31%in 2025 44%82%55%32%19%18%45%68%81%100%Amazon Prime VideoParamount+DisneyNetflixApple TVQ4 2025,proportion of global customers(RGUs)on ad-tier vs ad-free subscriptions,by companyAd-tier subscriptionAd-free subscription Ampere Analysis 2026|7 First,live sporting events are,arguably,the last remaining appointment-to-view content that can guarantee large concurrent audiences,generating large numbers of ad-impressions,which,alongside associating with a recognisable brand in the form of a major sports league,creates an attractive proposition for brands buying advertising space,offering a chance to drive up CPMs.Moreover,the audience is unique.Over a quarter of global consumers say they watch live sport regularly,and,according to Amperes Sports-Consumer survey,34%of sports fans say they only really care about watching sport and dont watch many TV series or films.Acquiring rights to live sport,therefore,taps into a new consumer segment,which is not only valuable for advertisers,but is also valuable as a mechanism for acquiring those subscribers who have not yet been persuaded to sign up to a global streaming service based on the film or entertainment offerings.Finally,many sports rights also assist with subscriber retention,providing fans with a regular flow of content across a season.While single events can help with subscriber acquisition,if there is limited other sport content to keep fans engaged,they will churn.This was evident for Paramount+after the 2024 Super Bowl in the US.The game drove roughly 2.3m subscribers for the platform,but 51%had churned within the first two months,and after eight months,three quarters of those new subscribers had left the service.Even by taking small rights packages with just one match per week,streamers can build a portfolio of sports that keeps customers returning to their platform all year round with the example of Amazon shown in the below chart.These global generalist streamers have also shown an increase in sports-related commissions outside of live events in recent years,adding this ancillary content to supplement their live sports rights to better assist with retaining sports fans as subscribers.Season lengths of sports rights held by Amazon Prime Video in the USA Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec NWSL NASCAR WNBA NBA NFL NBA Source:Ampere Sports Media Rights Ampere Analysis 2026|8 Whats next for the generalist streamers?Most of the early sport streaming deals,from 2017 to 2024,struck a similar tone,with smaller,co-exclusive rights packages that supplemented the streamers existing content and drove sign-ups.For example,Amazons current rights deal for the NFL Thursday Night Football,which started in 2022,is worth$1.1bn per year,but represents only 9%of the total deal value;while Amazons Premier League rights deal in the UK,struck in mid-2018,gave it matches centred around Christmas,a key time of the year for retail.Deals such as these have largely been additive for both sides:rightsholders look to grow revenues and widen audiences,while still relying on broadcast TV for the bulk of distribution;and streamers dip their toes in the water,using the portion of rights to drive subscriptions.However,more recently we have seen strategies from streamers begin to change,with each player using different approaches to curate the most strategic portfolio:Global/regional deals:Where Amazon had started out with mostly localised deals,it has moved toward global options,specifically in its 11-year NBA rights deal and the expansion of its NFL Black Friday game rights in 2025 from US-only to global.This allowed it to show 12 hours of live sport worldwide on Black Friday in 2025,bringing a wider range of sports fans into its ecosystem on the biggest shopping day of the year for its e-commerce platform.Single-market deals:Apple TV,on the other hand,has relaxed the emphasis on global rights seen in its MLS rights deal and agreed single-market rights for Formula 1 in the USA,instead placing a focus on a sport with growing local fandom and a synergy with existing non-live sports content,namely the F1 movie.Premium event deals:Netflix has also shown more interest in local rights,as part of its focus on premium,one-off events.In addition to its global deals for the NFL Christmas Day games or the recent boxing match between Anthony Joshua and Jake Paul,it has also picked up rights to major tournaments in specific markets where fandom is particularly high,for example the 2026 World Baseball Classic in Japan or the upcoming FIFA Womens World Cup in North America,capitalising on the growth in popularity of womens sports.Competition exclusivity:Exclusivity has played a key part in Apples rights strategy,with its intention to be the sole rightsholder of the leagues it covers,rather than taking co-exclusive packages and contributing to fragmentation within a specific sport.How will rightsholders adapt?As streamers become an increasingly more significant part of the sports media rights market,rightsholder strategy is evolving too.Perhaps the best example of this is UEFA,which created a new global package in its tender last year for the next cycle of the Mens Champions League rights from 2027-2031,designed with global streamers in mind.The package consisted of one first pick game each matchweek together with a marquee opening day fixture involving the winners from the previous season,which would be appealing to streamers in particular for multiple reasons.The opening day fixture creates exclusivity an opportunity to drive sign-ups at the beginning of the season,when consumers are excited about the event starting.Meanwhile,the season long first pick creates a recurring appointment-to-view slot,that benefits both Ampere Analysis 2026|9 subscriber retention throughout the season,and maximises the opportunity for large concurrent audiences to generate advertising revenue.However,while UEFA reportedly received interest in the global package from Netflix,Apple TV and DAZN,it was able to more successfully sell rights in the big five European markets individually,increasing values significantly in all markets other than France.In its first tender since appointing Relevent,the agency that assisted in more than doubling the value of its club competitions rights in the US,as its global marketing and sales partner,UEFA has increased the value of the rights across all three of its club competitions in these five markets alone by 20%to 2.4bn per season.And while ultimately the global package wasnt sold,its introduction most likely contributed to this increase in value,as local players were driven to increase their bids in order to compete with the additional threat of losing some games to a global buyer.UEFA has also been able to attract a new generalist streamer to the bidding process in the form of Paramount+,which has contributed to increasing the values in the UK and Germany,where it was successful in obtaining rights to the Champions League,displacing incumbent broadcasters TNT Sports and DAZN,respectively.It is likely that well see more leagues carve out global packages for small numbers of games or even adjust their schedules to create standalone events to attract the global streamers.There have already been some similar di