Because the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) March Madness tournament was canceled, overall live sports viewership will drop 0.2% this year.
“In recent years, TV networks and pay TV providers have relied more on live sports as cord-cutting and audience erosion accelerate,” said Eric Haggstrom, eMarketer forecasting analyst at Insider Intelligence. “Live sports represents billions of dollars in advertising and affiliate fees for the networks. Advertisers are eagerly awaiting the likely return of live sports in the fall as it is one of the few ways to reach a large, younger audience at scale.”
Almost half of those digital viewers will watch live sports through virtual multichannel video programming distributors (vMVPDs), such as Sling TV, Hulu with Live TV and YouTube TV. This year, 17.1 million people will watch live TV on these platforms, up 13.3% from 2019. And 69.3% of internet delivered pay TV viewers will use vMVPDs to watch live sports.