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Netflix novelty golf and F1 mashup would be an apt entry into live sports
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Netflix is planning to joinAppleand Amazon on thelive streaming sports bandwagonaccording to a new report from the Wall Street Journal.
However, the streaming pioneer isn’t planning to bid for the rights to top events like Premier League football, Major League Baseball or Major League Soccer, as Amazon and Apple have acquired respectively.
The WSJreportsaidNetflixplans to host the tournament in Las Vegas this autumn, bringing together the stars from the Formula 1: Drive to Survive and Full Swing reality series.
Wow. The least charismatic sports people in the history of the entire world taking part in a golf tournament. Pass. Hard pass.
This would be right in line with what we’ve come to expect from Netflix’s irreverent programming line-up, which has started to shift towards reality TV, rather than high-profile prestige drama.
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However, it does make sense for Netflix to leverage licensing deals and relationships, rather than going after some of the sporting world’s Crown Jewels, as many of its streaming rivals have. Yes, this would be live sports by definition, but hardly the kind of content that would encourage new subscribers into the fold en masse as Amazon achieved with its exclusive Premier League games.
While that might be enticing to fans of those existing reality TV shows, it’s unlikely to make headlines in the sporting world. Judging by the report, it’d be a one-time special event and is unlikely to have much appeal beyond the gimmicky celebrity Pro-Am novelty tournaments we see all the time.
However, it’s very Netflix. This wouldn’t require a long commitment over a number of years – like Apple’s ten-year arrangement with Major League Soccer – and it wouldn’t ‘t require hundreds of millions in investment like Amazon’s deal with the EPL.
Indeed, it feels just as disposable as much of the Netflix output these days, which has made it difficult to fully invest in shows due to the slew of cancellations that often come out of the blue, regardless of a show’s large following.
Netflix has never aired live sports, although the company has changed tack on a number of its tenets in the last few years. In an effort maintain and attract new subscribers in an increasingly competitive streaming environment, the company has gone back on several founding principles. That includes backtracking on advertisements and its attitude towards password sharing.
Netflix has begun to explore live streamed events and its first ever was astand-up comedy event starring Chris Rockthat aired earlier this year, but sports would be a step farther and present different production challenges.
“I’m not saying we never would do sports, but we would have to see a path to growing a big revenue stream and a big profit stream with it,” Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said last year.
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Chris Smith is a freelance technology journalist for a host of UK tech publications, including Trusted Reviews. He’s based in South Florida, USA. …
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Founded in 2003, Trusted Reviews exists to give our readers thorough, unbiased and independent advice on what to buy.
Today, we have millions of users a month from around the world, and assess more than 1,000 products a year.
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
