Source: Winifred, Amase. Top video streaming platforms by subscibers (January 29,2024). The Amase Designs, Flixpatrol. Available at Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/winifred-amase-91092b40_streaming-video-netflix-activity-7157720839864422400-AJMo

Streaming and sport

Streaming platforms have to keep renewing their "movie library", innovating and coming up with something new so that their users don't switch to competitors or back to classic TV. Probably the biggest trend or novelty we can see in recent years in this sector is the streaming of sports. Streaming services already own and are still buying additional rights to broadcast various sports, allowing users to watch these sports exclusively on their platforms. Sport is an important segment, especially in the US, and is expected to grow in importance in Europe as well and will play a very important role in the streaming sector in the future.

Recently, we have even seen a new collaboration regarding streaming sports. Disney, Warner Bros Discovery and Fox have announced a partnership that they hope will allow them to compete with big companies such as Amazon, Apple or Alphabet. It is these companies that have bought the rights to stream a number of sports in recent years. Amazon pays one billion dollars a year to stream Thursday Night Football. Apple, for its part, bought the rights to broadcast the American soccer league MLS for 10 years for 2.5 billion dollars. There is speculation that Apple is also interested in the rights to the NBA and Formula 1. The estimated price for the rights to Formula 1 is expected to be around 2 billion dollars per season.

The biggest player in streaming - Netflix - is not slacking off in this category either. Earlier this year, it announced a 10-year, 5 billion dollars deal with WWE that will allow it to stream wrestling on its platform. Netflix also hosts its own sporting events, which it streams on its platform. The most recent one was a tennis event called the Netflix Slam, which featured a match between tennis stars Nadal and Alcaraz. This year, we will also be able to watch a boxing match on Netflix, which will see boxing legend Mike Tyson take on influencer Jake Paul.

In the picture we can see the distribution of sports rights in the USA. The newly announced service from Disney, Warner Bros Discovery and Fox is expected to include around 55% of US sports rights.

Source: Canal, Alexandra. The ESPN-Fox-WBD sports venture is a counterstrike against Big Tech and rights fees inflation. Here's how (February 7,2024). City Research, Yahoo Finance. Available at Yahoo Finance: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/the-espn-fox-wbd-sports-venture-is-a-counterstrike-against-big-tech-and-rights-fees-inflation-heres-how-191534965.html

Streaming platforms in Slovakia

Televisions such as Markiza or JOJ in Slovakia see the growing popularity of streaming platforms and therefore they also have their own streaming platforms. The content of Markiza TV station can be found on the streaming service VOYO, which is very popular in Slovakia. JOJ has its own streaming service, JOJ play. In the second half of last year, VOYO reported 650,000 paying customers in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Netflix and other global streaming services do not report the number of subscribers per country. However, the assumption is that Netflix is the market leader in Slovakia, followed by VOYO. Disney Plus and HBO MAX are likely to follow in third and fourth place.

Conclusion

Streaming platforms have disrupted the "long-standing monopoly" of classic TV, and many people refer to them as the future of TV entertainment. Classic TVs are trying to innovate and adapt to user demands. They are developing their own apps or streaming services, which are available on modern smart TVs. But only the future will tell for sure whether this will be enough and who will dominate 'TV entertainment'. Shares of the biggest players in the streaming sector can also be found in several of our funds, such as the Fond budúcnosti, Aktívne portfólio alebo Fond maximalizovaných výnosov.

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