NEW YORK—A new report from Nielsen’s Gracenote highlights the ongoing shift of sports content to streaming services with data showing that the streaming industry’s leading global subscription video on-demand (SVOD) services, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, Disney+, Netflix and Paramount+, have significantly grown their sports programming over the last quarter.
These five providers collectively increased sports programs by more than 72% in the recent quarter, underscoring the value of sports as a driver of live, real-time viewership and critical component of their content strategies, the researchers found.
The new data is from an update of the Gracenote Data Hub. Since the first Gracenote Data Hub release in October 2024, sports programming, including exclusive NFL games, WWE RAW events, U.S. Open tennis tournament matches and more, has become increasingly available across streaming platforms.
Notably, four of the five SVOD services tracked by Gracenote have bolstered their sports programming, led by Disney+ and Netflix, with increases of 471% and nearly 100%, respectively. While Apple TV+ did not increase its sports content in the recent quarter, that will change as the new MLS and MLB seasons get underway and live games air on the service.
“Live sports programming continues to be an important driver of user growth, retention and engagement for streaming services,” said Bill Michels, chief product officer at Gracenote. “We are also seeing that relevant metadata, such as synopses, scores, highlights and imagery have the power to help streamers build world-class user experiences that keep users engaged beyond the live game.”
The data also showed that on a quarter-over-quarter basis, these services have added 6.7% more content to their catalogs, with increases of 5.4% and 7.6% for TV and movies, respectively.
Other highlights from the data include:
- The increase in content across global SVOD services includes approximately 3,000 movies, 2,000 TV shows and 500 sports shows.
- A dramatic increase in sports programming on Disney+, largely the result of adding select ESPN programming, has shifted the distribution of sports programming across the five services.
- Disney+ now accounts for nearly 33% of available sports programming, just behind Amazon (35%), which previously distributed 54% of sports programming.
- Netflix accounts for just over 23% of sports programming.
- Overall, Amazon Prime Video remains the largest distributor of video content, offering nearly 69% of the available programming, up from 67.8% in Q1 2024.
- An increase in French content and a notable decrease in content produced in India on Disney+ has made France the third-biggest producer, accounting for 5.6% of the total.
- Drama remains the top genre across the five services, but it has dropped from the No. 1 position on Disney+, where it has been overtaken by documentary, comedy, children and adventure.
Gracenote program metadata covers more than 40 million titles in 260+ streaming catalogs in 35 languages and 80+ countries. The same metadata that powers the user experiences of the world’s biggest and most innovative TV providers also enables data-driven decision-making to help content distributors and owners succeed amid rapid change. The Gracenote Data Hub is updated quarterly and future releases will include data from other segments of the TV ecosystem.
