US sport streaming subs to climb by 66% during Olympics

Sports streaming platforms in the US will see subscribers jump by 66% during the upcoming summer Olympic Games, with 29% of households to sign up to a new streamer to watch the global sport event, forecasts subscription super bundling provider Bango.

According to Bango’s latest report, one in four American subscribers is expected to sign up to a new streaming service to watch the Olympic Games this July.

The company predicts a hike of subscribers for NBCUniversal’s Peacock platform, which secured the streaming rights for the summer games.

Bango’s report also points to a booming SportsVOD sector across the US, with viewers willing to pay significantly more for sport streaming services.

Findings showed the average SportsVOD subscriber pays USD $120 per month for all of their subscription services, while the average US subscriber pays 66% less at $77 per month.

Bango’s research highlighted the challenges amongst the sports streaming space, with viewers calling for centralised streaming services and viewers reverting to pirate streamers to watch sport content.

Over half of SportsVOD subscribers can’t afford all the subscriptions they want, while 73% agree said there were too many different subscription services needed to cover the sports they’re interested in.

The report also revealed 87% of SportsVOD subscribers called for a single ‘content hub’ to centralise all of their sports subscriptions into one place, with 55% of sports streamers using pirate streaming services to access all of their favourite content in one place.

Paul Larbey, CEO of Bango, said: “Sports fans want choice. They are willing to pay to watch the content they are interested in, and the reality is that this content will come from different providers. As a result, sports fans want to simplify this arrangement through easy billing and control of subscriptions. And they want flexibility and the ability to build their own bundles.

Bango gathered data from 2,000 SportsVOD subscription users and 3,000 general subscribers for its Going for Gold report.