Value of Digital Sports rights predicted to grow by 10% over next five years

A new report from PricewaterhouseCoopers suggests that the value of digital sports rights will grow by 9.7% over the next five years, ahead of overall sports industry growth of 6.4% over the same period.

The fourth edition of PwC Sports Survey gathered the views of 580 industry leaders from 49 countries on growth expectations and a wide range of strategic and organisational topics.

Revealing that digital media rights are expected to be the key driver for the growth of the sport industry over the next five years, the paper revealed that sports industry leaders expect the sector’s growth to continue at a healthy annual rate of 6.4% in the next three to five years, albeit below the 7.4% seen in the past three to five years.

The report also reveals that while the digital sector is expected to achieve growth of up to 9.7%, traditional media streams will experience ‘much lower growth rates’ during the same period, which are estimated to be at no more than 4.1%.

Enthusiastic on the unrealised potential of digital, the PwC paper does cast doubts as to whether sports organisations can benefit from online growth, with concerns that the major technology firms will instead be the ones to reap the benefits as both gatekeepers and producers of content.

Significantly when compared to last year, this year’s edition of the report sees respondents predicting slightly lower growth rates overall and across revenue streams over the coming years, a potential area of concern and uncertainty given the business impact of changing consumption behaviour of younger generations.

While over-the-top (OTT) platforms look set to play a role in the growth of digital rights, the PwC study suggests the ‘hype’ of a ‘commercial silver bullet’ for rights holders provided by direct-to-consumers offerings is over.

This is due to doubts over quality and long-term interest, as cited by the majority of those surveyed, who also rated the current OTT space as being below expectations or disappointing.