Nearly half Urban Indian subscribed to exclusive sports streaming platform

New data from YouGov’s latest report- The Global Sports Media Landscape, reveals that just over two thirds of global consumers (67%) follow sports on a regular basis (in the last 30 days) via various media platforms.

Looking at the data by country, we see that Indonesia and UAE have the highest proportion of ‘sport engagers’ (89% each), defined as those who engage with sports they regularly follow (in the last 30 days) across any traditional and digital media platforms or formats. 

India is not far behind, and more than four in five (85%) urban Indians claim they follow sports on a regular basis across various media platforms. Comparatively, European countries and America register lower levels of engagement.  

Examining how consumers engage with the sports they regularly follow by country reveals that live TV is the preferred method in 12 out of the 18 markets surveyed. Live sports on TV dominates in the more traditional European markets along with North America (US, Mexico, and Canada), whilst social media occupies pole position in all Asian countries.

In India, two in five consumers engage with sports on social media and it is the most popular way of consuming sports content. Watching live sports on a TV channel (36%) and watching live streamed video content online on YouTube, etc. (35%) are the next best ways to watch sports among urban Indian residents.

Adults between 35 and 44 years were more likely to say they consume sports content on social media (at 46%) while the 55+ adults were more likely to claim they watch it live on TV (50%).

An examination of their streaming behaviour shows that nearly half of urban Indians (45%) claim they have subscribed to a sports platform or service to gain access to exclusive sports content, more than those who haven’t (39%).

Sports-led subscriptions enhance the level of sports consumption among subscribers. In fact, more than three-quarters of urban Indians (77%) report that their sports content subscription has encouraged them to consume more sports content with around a fifth (18%) maintaining their current levels of sports viewership.  

In the area of digital sports streaming and content, Cricket is the most popular sport – with a large majority of Indian sports subscribers accessing cricket content (72%). The next most popular sport among urban Indian sport subscribers is Soccer (40%) and Tennis (32%).

When asked if they would be interested in watching lifestyle focussed sports content (such as the Last Dance on Netflix), 45% urban Indians said they are very or somewhat interested in that. Interest is higher among young adults between 25 and 34 years, where three in ten claim they are very interested in watching lifestyle-focussed sports content.

Download the full report here.

Methodology

The insights in this report are drawn from a recent global YouGov Survey to understand the challenges and opportunities for sport in an evolving media landscape, how the consumption of sports content is changing, and what sports organizations should do to adapt to changing media behavior. Our research covers 18 global markets of more than 19,000 respondents. The survey results were further bolstered by connecting respondent level YouGov Research data to YouGov’s proprietary syndicated data solution for the sports industry specifically. Our survey was fielded from the 11th November to 30th November 2022. Data for India is based on an online urban sample of 1022 respondents. Data is adjusted with mild weighting using interlocking demographic characteristics.