Netflix has built a multi-billion dollar streaming business by keeping viewers hooked with cliffhangers and unexpected plot twists. Now, the company is hoping it can carry out an offscreen surprise in its own business as its competitors pile into live sports programming.
Streaming companies like Apple, Google-owned YouTube and Amazon are all betting big on sports. Apple is paying $250 million per year to show every Major League Soccer match for 10 years (CEO Tim Cook name-checked soccer superstar Lionel Messi three times in the company’s most recent earnings call). And NFL rights are reportedly costing Amazon and YouTube a respective $1 billion and $2 billion annually.
Netflix—the platform with the highest number of subscribers at 238 million—appears to be stuck on the sidelines. In November, it will host its first ever live sporting event: a celebrity golf tournament. It’s a far cry from the razzle dazzle of Monday Night Football.
But Netflix’s sports strategy is not as lackluster as it might seem. The company is taking a different approach to cash in on viewer demand for sports programming. Instead of plunking down huge sums of money for broadcast rights to games—something that co-CEO Ted Sarandos has said Netflix hasn’t found a way to do profitably—Netflix is using its strength in storytelling to create a deep catalog of docu-series about various sports and athletes.
Netflix users might recognize the slew of sports content that has materialized on their home pages in recent years, much of which adheres to a similar format: A camera crew follows a set of athletes through their season for a behind-the-scenes look at their wins, losses and personal lives. The first for Netflix was Formula 1: Drive to Survive, a five-season show following race car drivers, managers and team owners. Netflix has expanded its unofficial genre to include Break Point about tennis stars, Full Swing for golf, Quarterback, Cheer, Tour de France: Unchained and more. It isn’t slowing down. Earlier this month, the company announced it is developing a series following track and field athletes.
This strategy lets Netflix reach the same sports-loving audience without having to pay the steep price of showing live sports, says Dan Rayburn, an independent streaming industry analyst and consultant. He reckons the cost of sports documentaries is also significantly lower than the fictional scripted series that Netflix produces.
And unlike live sporting events, a highly perishable form of content, documentaries about athletes and sports can retain their appeal with viewers for a longer period of time.
It is difficult to determine how profitable these sports docu-series are for Netflix, because it doesn’t release figures for the genre. “But if it wasn’t working, they wouldn’t keep making more,” Rayburn told Fortune.
Why sports leagues love docu-series
The idea isn’t totally novel. HBO, part of streaming service Max, premiered Hard Knocks in 2001. The series follows NFL teams through training camp, and it is still on air. Hard Knocks was a reference point for the team that created Netflix’s Drive to Survive on what the show should look and feel like, according to Paul Martin, co-founder of Box to Box Films, which produced the racing docu-series.
Drive to Survive routinely sits on Netflix’s Top 10 Most Watched list when new seasons come out, with more than 6.8 million people having tuned into the show, according to YouGov Sports, a sports research company. Nielsen credits the show for creating a 2.3% increase in Formula 1 auto-racing viewership, as part of a larger 10% bump since 2019. Formula 1 was also able to sell its broadcasting rights to ESPN in 2022 for more than $75 million per year, skyrocketing from the previous $5 million they were worth, according to the Sports Business Journal.
“After the success of Drive to Survive, sports leagues looked around and realized they could do that kind of show and have a similar effect on their sport,” Martin told Fortune. Along with Drive to Survive, Martin produced Break Point, Full Swing and Tour de France: Unchained. He is also producing the new docu-series about runners for Netflix.
In other words, Netflix is tapping into the interest in individual sports and driving up the value of the sporting events, without shouldering the cost of the increased demand.
Live sports bring huge audiences, with 58 million Americans watching sporting events at least once per month, according to the most recent data from Statista in 2021. But it can be difficult to make money broadcasting live games. The rights are expensive, and negotiations are difficult and time-consuming. Amazon reportedly lost “hundreds of millions” of dollars its first year streaming Thursday Night Football, according to The Information. For YouTube, experts expect the Sunday Ticket will act as a loss leader. DirecTV, which formerly owned the rights, was reportedly losing $500 million on the package annually.
By sitting out of the live sports competition, Netflix also avoids the costs and logistical challenges of broadcasting live, including hiring camera crews and announcers. Netflix had technical trouble in April when the tech behind its live Love Is Blind reunion failed—if something like that happened during the final minutes of a big game, the damage to the Netflix brand could be massive.
Better than a true crime series
While some sports docu-series with this all-access style have found homes on other streaming platforms—like Make or Break about professional surfers on Apple TV+—it’s noteworthy that most have ended up on Netflix.
“The tennis guys were set in wanting to be with Netflix because of the reach and audience,” Martin said about producing Break Point. The idea for the show started with him and the Association of Tennis Professionals, the governing body of men’s tennis. They then brought in the Women’s Tennis Association and pitched the series to Netflix, he said.
For the upcoming track and field series, the idea came from a lunch with Netflix where someone said, “Why don’t we just do the 100 meters?” according to Martin. Everyone thought it was a great idea, and Netflix brought in World Athletics, the professional association behind the sport, he said.
“Everyone in the sports world understands there’s an appetite for these shows,” Martin said. It makes sense for Netflix to stay with this model rather than purchasing the rights to the sports games. Netflix isn’t in the business of creating value in something and then having to pay larger prices for rights, he said.
As for the future of the genre, consumers can expect to see more streaming companies shift their budgets to produce live sports docu-series, according to Rayburn, the streaming analyst. Companies are always moving money towards what’s hot, from police procedurals to reality dating series to true crime. And right now, he said, people are talking about the style of sports documentaries Netflix has its money on.
