Building on the success of sports series like Formula 1, which have attracted hundreds of millions of hours of viewing, Netflix wants to go further and break into sport by broadcasting live sports competitions. The goal is also to catch up with Amazon and Apple, already present on the market.
The platform continues to bet on Formula 1, but its latest attempts have failed: Earlier this year, Netflix made a bid for the live streaming rights to Formula 1 in the US, but lost out to Disney.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the streaming platform recently made a bid for the rights to broadcast the ATP tennis tour in certain European countries, including France, but the bid also fell through. In question, the high cost of transmission rights. The company then turned to less prestigious competitions, primarily in tennis and surfing.
To meet the crowd
Netflix’s potential entry into sports comes as rivals have spent huge sums on streaming rights. Amazon pays the National Football League (NFL) $1.2 billion a year for the rights to Thursday Night Football and signed an 11-year contract. For its part, Apple exclusively broadcasts certain Major League Baseball games for a 10-year, $2.5 billion contract.
To keep up with its competitors, Netflix relies on its subscribers, or 223 million people worldwide. Sport continues to be a means of attracting new entrants. Meanwhile, Netflix continues to build its catalog of sports-oriented documentary series with series like “Last Chance U” or “The Redeem Team”. The streaming service also plans to release a new Tour de France documentary series scheduled to film this year.
Source: BFM TV
