Netflix Says No “Core Change” To Live Sports Strategy Despite Teeing Off Its First Golf Tournament
Netflix is adamant that it’s not interested in live sports.
“We are in the sports business, but we’re in the part of the sports business that we bring the most value to, which is the drama of sport, Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos said on the company’s third-quarter earnings call.
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Sarandos was referring to sports docu-series such as Drive To Survive, Full Swing, Quarterback and Beckham.
He added that there was no “core change” in its live sports strategy. This comes after Netflix set its first live sports event.
The streamer is hosting The Netflix Cup, a golf tournament that features drivers from its Formula 1: Drive To Survive series and golfers from its Full Swing show.
Kicking off on November 14 at an 18-hole championship golf course, around the Formula 1 Heineken Silver Las Vegas Grand Prix, the event marks the first time that Netflix has even dipped its toes into a live sports event.
In The Netflix Cup, four pairs consisting of one driver and one golfer will play an eight-hole match with the top two teams advancing to the final hole. The rosters includes Formula 1 drivers Alex Albon (Williams Racing); Pierre Gasly (BWT Alpine F1 Team); Lando Norris (McLaren Racing); and Carlos Sainz (Scuderia Ferrari), and PGA Tour golfers Rickie Fowler, Max Homa, Collin Morikawa and Justin Thomas.
Netflix’s rivals have been bolstering their sports coverage; Google-owned YouTube bought the rights to the NFL’s Sunday Ticket, Amazon Prime Video has Thursday Night Football among other rights and Apple TV+ has rights across Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer.
Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos has long talked about not getting involved in live sports, saying that it has not “seen a profit path” from “renting big-league sports”.
“We’re not saying there never will be,” he said,” but “dramatically expensive” rights have made sports effectively a “loss leader.”
“We’re not anti-sports,” Sarandos added. “We’re just pro-profit. We have yet to figure out how to do it.”
He also hasn’t previously seen the value in niche sports where rights are cheaper. “I don’t know that those sports suffer from being under-distributed,” Sarandos has said. “So, I don’t know that we’d bring that much to them.”
Having said all of this, Netflix was reportedly keen to acquire the rights to Formula 1 in the U.S. but lost out to Disney-owned ESPN.
Given that Sarandos also previously said that it was not interested in an advertising plan for its service and it launched one last year, take what he says with a pinch of salt.
But Sarandos reiterated that despite this sports strategy, it was continuing to “invest heavily” in its live capabilities, which hampered its reunion show for dating format Love Is Blind.
“As the demand grows for that and we find different ways, the liveness can be part of the creative storytelling and we want to be able to do that a big scale,” he added.
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