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Netflix Bets Big
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Netflix has finally done what everyone has been waiting for and invested significant money in sports: https://lnkd.in/e797ZMrr

‍It's a $150 million per game gamble and comes as Netflix refreshes its under-performing ad partnership with Microsoft (good tech stack, poor sales performance). Magnite should provide better support here.In theory, Netflix is a pipe, and content is content, so NFL fans should just tune in to watch the games, right?

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Except Netflix has already tested live sports... and it ended with a whimper, not a bang. We looked at the Netflix slam (chart below) last month, which was an exhibition tennis match featuring two of the biggest names Nadal and Alcaraz.

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Our conclusions were roughly this: Consumers were not prepared for live events on Netflix at all.

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Viewing patterns were almost all delayed and contrasted sharply with typical NFL/football finals, where live (within 2 mins) viewership is typically 95%.

This is a problem, as big live-audiences have tremendous value for advertisers, better impact, better recall, better water-cooler moments - less people wandering off to make a coffee.

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The act of delaying viewing, actually devalues the ad...A secondary conclusion was - It's really hard to build something new in sports without a supporting brand and that if Netflix is serious about sports, they should invest big, in (something like) the NFL and take the hit on the first few streams.