Insights
Search
Menu
Search

Broadcasting: 10 Years Later

Jake Leithiser / Jun 26, 2025
Sports
In 2015, we released the groundbreaking Future of Sports report with Delaware North, exploring transformative changes in the sports industry. Now, a decade later, we’re revisiting those predictions, reflecting on our insights, and examining the current state of the industry.

In 2015, we saw the future of on-air sports as an uncertain, fractured frontier rife with opportunities—and pitfalls—for players, media companies and fans alike. Fast forward a decade and we’re in the midst of a brand new era we barely noticed arriving. What’s unfolded since the report’s publishing in 2015 has been so transformative that many of us haven’t even consciously registered the changes. Live sports streaming has so seamlessly infiltrated our media diets over the last 10 years that, for many of us, it’s hard to remember a recent past where catching a game meant flipping through the channels on your remote instead of opening an app.

And in the last month, just shy of 10 years after the report’s publication, we reached a milestone that was all but unthinkable to 2015’s broadcast and cable elite: streaming viewership passed linear (broadcast + cable + satellite) viewership for the first time.

What We Got Right

Prediction:

“Google, Facebook, or another so-called over-the-top player will outbid all traditional broadcasters for rights to a major global sport — and give the games away for free.”

Upon the Future of Sports report’s release in 2015, the writing was already on the wall: social media platforms and streaming giants were eyeing live sports as their next conquest. Just a year later, that vision began to take shape. In 2016, Twitter made history by streaming the New York Jets vs. Buffalo Bills game, widely-considered to be the first ever live sports broadcast on social media. The event drew 2.3 million viewers, including pre- and post-game coverage, signaling a seismic shift in how sports could be consumed in the digital age.

Since that early leap into digital broadcasts, the floodgates have opened.

In 2017, Amazon Prime made its sports broadcasting debut with a simulcast of Thursday Night Football—a move that evolved into an exclusive, billion-dollar deal starting in 2022 and extending through at least 2033. But it’s not without a cost for viewers, who need an Amazon Prime membership to stream the games. That same year, Facebook entered the sports streaming arena with its first NBA broadcast, with a caveat—the game was only available to Facebook users in India. The platform doubled down on their foray into the Indian subcontinent by partnering with La Liga to stream all live matches for free on Facebook Watch for three seasons.

More recently, Netflix acquired the rights to a brand new doubleheader slate of Christmas NFL games, their first major swing at live sports broadcasting. Early results were through the roof—the first games set records as the most-streamed NFL games in U.S. history.

Prediction:

“Access to players through social media and other online formats is no longer the exclusive province of insiders. Superfans increasingly break national news stories by posting their own videos and encounters with players and owners. Viewers increasingly turn to these amateur announcers during games to hear in-depth, franchise-specific commentary that is not geared toward the average fan.”

While established streaming services continue to capture a larger portion of the live sports pie, sports commentary, on the other hand, feels more like the Wild West than ever. The ‘talking heads” of yesterday have given way to a brand new generation of content creators.

Many fans now choose to watch broadcasts of their favorite streamers and influencers commenting and reacting to games. Amazon has helped nurture this pipeline by allowing Twitch streamers to watch Thursday Night Football free of charge on the platform. In the first 12 games of the 2024-25 season, fans watched over 4.5m hours of Thursday Night Football on Twitch. Streamers like TimTheTatMan, NICKMERCS, NateHill and AngryJoe, among others, provided popular “alternative streams” to TNF games. Notably, these personalities are famous not for their football knowledge and background, but as popular video game streamers.

The way news breaks in the world of sports has transformed as well. Sports news now moves at the pace of social media, and with greater speed comes lesser veracity. Anyone with a social media account and some luck on their side is capable of making waves in the sports world, whether information is accurate or not. In 2017, whispers among NFL circles indicated that star Arizona Cardinals WR Larry Fitzgerald was on the trading block. An eagle-eyed Twitter user snapped a photo of Larry Fitzgerald at a Hertz rental car location at Logan Airport in Boston, and the NFL world was turned upside down—the news of an official trade to the New England Patriots, one of his rumored landing places, was seemingly imminent. The only problem? The man in the photo was not actually Larry Fitzgerald. But before the “news” could be corroborated by professional sources, it had spread like wildfire (Fitzgerald ultimately stayed with the Cardinals).

But overall, the distribution of power brings more upside for fans than downside. The proliferation of sports content creators means there’s a niche for everyone. Want funny insights and less-than-expert opinions on an NBA game? In-depth film breakdowns of your college football team from a former coach? There’s a “channel” out there for you.

What We Got Wrong

Prediction:

“The term ‘broadcasting’ will become obsolete.”

It’s difficult to predict what words and phrases will remain in the lexicon, even as anachronisms, but it’s clear that we underestimated the staying power of the word “broadcasting.” Part of it may be due to just how naturally streaming has been integrated into our typical sport viewing experience. By and large, most fans are streaming the games through their TVs, leading to an experience that still feels like a broadcast, even if the technology is vastly different.

Prediction:

“Google, Facebook, or another so-called over-the-top player will outbid all traditional broadcasters for rights to a major global sport — and give the games away for free.”

One thing we missed in this prediction: the free portion. Amazon Prime and Netflix aren’t broadcasting their NFL games at no cost—instead, fans are required to purchase subscriptions to those streamers to watch. Options continue to increase for cord-cutters, but as games continue to be doled out amongst different services, fans are racking up a longer and longer streaming bill.

Related Insights