The future of watching sports

There is a seismic shift in the way people around the world are watching sports and all other kinds of content. On April 28, Phoenix Suns owner Mat Ishbia announced that Suns and the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury games will no longer be seen on pay cable television in the United States. Instead, they will be aired in Arizona on a local TV channel, and wider broadcasts will be done on a free streaming service. It signals a migration of audiences from paid linear broadcast and on to streaming services that are supported by other revenue sources. Even previously strong sports cable channels in the US have already died off in the last 10 years. Channels like DAZN, ESPN, UFC, NBA and others charge anywhere from $7 to 20 a month, plus extra for special events and premium content.

On May 18, The Wall Street Journal reported that ESPN will finally launch its long-awaited stand-alone streaming service. This would be a more comprehensive upgrade from ESPN+, which was launched in 2018. The cable television market has been shrinking dramatically, particularly in America, and ESPN has been one of its last remaining pillars from decades ago. Data from Disney, which owns ESPN, reveals that the sports network’s cable-television revenue shrank by close to 36 percent last quarter from the same time period a year ago. Linear television seems to be gradually fading out, as well. Cable TV supplanted a huge chunk of the traditional television market in the 1980’s. Now, it is suffering a worse fate.

One of the next big changes was the binge-watching style pioneered by subscription streaming services like Netflix, who decided to upload all of the episodes of their series simultaneously. Audiences no longer had to wait for a new installment of their favorite program every day or week. In 2013, Netflix’s “House of Cards” won an Emmy Award, the first non-network-produced program to win. ABC, CBS and NBC belatedly started to feel the heat.

In 2015, the Philippines reportedly breached the 50-percent mark in TV audience share watching content on mobile devices. (It appears that it was an unintended side-effect of traffic in major urban centers.) Since then, sports content has exploded online in the country, with illegal channels sprouting everywhere, many of them broadcasting stolen sports content or soliciting electronic payments in exchange for shoutouts during pirated live sporting events.

Now, there is a new technology that is gradually taking sports audiences away from traditional TV. This trend has been spreading all over Europe, and parts of Latin America, the Middle East and northern Africa for years, and sports is one of its main drivers. It is called Free Ad-Supported Streaming Television or FAST. Aside from the new technology, it can also customize and target content towards specific audiences or demographics, making advertising more effective. This writer has been in discussions with BlueSky Media, one of the pioneers and major players in FAST with a presence in 46 countries in the regions mentioned above. With fresh investor capital, BSM is now looking for partners in the Philippines, in a rush to expand into Asia. In their eyes, the Philippine market is dynamic, growing, sports-oriented, and leading the way in innovation in the continent.

FAST technology is nimble, quick and is changing how sports is watched worldwide. For example, a Philippine channel would likely have curated spirts content leaning heavily towards local and international basketball and boxing, with human interest short-form and long-form documentaries thrown into the mix as a base. With access to global sports content, a giant provider like BSM would also be a powerhouse in the Philippines, and use it as a catapult to ASEAN and the entirety of Asia. The most obvious advantages are that audiences would not have to pay for it, while local partners and investors would benefit from global revenues. Everyone wins.