Rate of growth for clips and highlights to outstrip live – five-year projections

The rate of growth for in-play clip and short-form highlights rights will outstrip the rate of growth for live rights according to five-year projections by Two Circles.
Using its proprietary media-modelling techniques, developed helping over 100 of the world’s leading rights-holders drive commercial growth through their digital assets, Two Circles projects the global sports media rights market will be worth $60.9bn in 2024 – up from $48.2bn in 2019, a five-year growth rate of 29%.

During this period, the value of live rights will grow at a rate of 18.7% to hit $49.1bn in 2024. However, in-play clips rights will grow at a rate of 76% to hit $1.7bn, while short-form highlights rights will grow at a rate of 101% to hit $3.2bn, across the same period.

Value of sports media rights globally ($bn)

This growth is due to rights-holders capitalising on changes in media consumption habits to create and license new packages of short-form sports action. Though in 2019 live rights account for 86% of the value received by rights-holders, according to Two Circles the average sports fan¹ only consumes 55% of their sports video content live – a proportion that is set to fall to 53% in 2024.

Gareth Balch, Two Circles CEO, said: “Sport is the last bastion of live entertainment, as we see repeatedly through its ability to create moments that make the world stand still. As the world’s population and average wealth rises, live sport will continue to be a valuable entertainment platform that people will pay to watch, and brands pay to advertise around.

“However, sports fans want to complement live viewing with content they can watch on-demand in a format that suits their day-to-day lives, or see the key moments of action as they happen if they cannot commit to an entire live game. There is huge unrealised commercial value here, which rights-holders are beginning to capitalise on through new content packages and evolved relationships with media partners.”

Time spent by the average sports fan consuming sports video content (2019)

Recent deals that demonstrate the growing value of clips and short-form highlights rights include the ICC’s new four-year partnership with Facebook, which has seen the social media platform become world cricket governing body’s exclusive digital content rights partner. Across CWC19, the ICC drew 4.6bn views for its short-form digital content across owned channels and licensee partner channels.

¹ Sports fans in the world’s 80 highest-income territories, per The World Bank definition.

Definitions:

• Live: Live sports event coverage
• In-Play Clips: Short-form clips of sports action, distributed in near-real-time in parallel with live coverage
• Short-Form Highlights: Time-delayed highlights of sports action under 10-minutes long
• Long-Form Highlights: Time-delayed highlights of sports action over 10-minutes long
• Off-Field Content: Documentaries, interviews and analysis.