Streaming Video Counts Down to Kickoff

Key Takeaways:

• Live sports, particularly NFL football, has become an increasingly important driver of traffic and revenue for streamers; Pathmatics by Sensor Tower data shows the importance of the NFL season for FuboTV and Sling, whose downloads and MAUs typically increase during the second half of the year and cyclically decline in 2Q when there are fewer high profile sporting events, excluding the Super Bowl. In 3Q22, MAUs increased 15% QoQ for FuboTV and 4% QoQ for Sling

• 3Q22 downloads exhibited a similar trend, increasing nearly 100% and 23% QoQ for FuboTV and Sling, respectively

• Network TV providers and their streaming counterparts have a more balanced ad spend cadence and averaged 26% of total US ad spend for 2022 in 3Q22 across ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, Hulu, Peacock, and Paramount+ vs. niche SVOD companies, FuboTV and Sling, according to Pathmatics data

• Peacock and Paramount+ saw 4Q22 MAUs increase 30% and 10% QoQ, respectively, as both platforms touted the ability to stream certain NFL games covered by their parent company

• YouTube TV saw the most notable spike in US ad spend around NFL content in 2023, with ~20% YTD compared to 0% of NFL ad spend across the cohort in 2022

• Impressions connected with YouTube TV and the NFL rose over 30% YTD across the sports viewing cohort, potentially in response to YouTube’s upcoming exclusive coverage of Sunday games as parent Google purchased the rights to Sunday Ticket earlier this year

For more information, request the full report from reports@sensortower.com.