Netflix: What Does Live Sports Mean For The Streaming Giant

Yahoo

27-02-2025

The world's largest streaming platform, Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) made its debut in the NFL market by airing two matches on Christmas Day. Just as the Ravens set the record by battering Texans 31-2, (one of the two games aired), Netflix smashed the record books by assembling an average minute audience of 24.3 million. However, with a formidable monthly user of 70 million in its ad-supported tier in ad-supported countries, the best is yet to come for Netflix. The current share price presents investors with an upside of 63.6%.
Netflix is one of those few companies that do not need any introduction. Netflix is the world's largest subscription video on demand (SVOD) for paid members and enables its users to stream TV shows, movies and even live sports lately. Netflix also launched its beta version of game streaming for a subset of users in select regions. Netflix's widespread popularity is better reflected in its subscriber count. Netflix maintains a massive lead of 72 million subscribers over its biggest rival, Walt Disney. Netflix saw its worst when it reported a loss of 1 million subscribers in Q2 2022 due to price hikes and emerging competition. However, Reed Hastings and his management team were able to turn things around with a crackdown on password-sharing. The crackdown required users to pay for additional sharing options or create new accounts. And since this crackdown in May 2023, Netflix has added over 60 million subscribers. As of December 13, 2024, Netflix has a colossal subscriber count of approximately 283 million. Netflix has added 22 million paying subscribers to its platform in the first nine months of this year, up from 16 million additions in the first nine months of 2023.
9metersThe chart, compiled by 9meters, illustrates how Netflix subscriptions evolved in the last 13 years across multiple plans for the US market. The most notable change is the introduction of an ad-supported tier, Standard with Ads plan in 2023 (although it was launched in November 2022). Netflix has also strategically hiked its subscription prices every 2 years over the last three years across the three plans. And since Standard Plan has not seen a hike over the previous three years, it would be reasonable to estimate a hike of $1 for the Standard Plan
S&P GlobalAs S&P Global stated higher segment profitability would be the cornerstone of the market participants' fate, as higher margins would enable companies to not only spend more on better quality original content but also develop stronger and robust language models that would help the algorithms understand each user's unique preferences and lay out a strategic direction for Netflix. Hence, this is why [url="]S&P Global[/url] projects Netflix's profit would dwarf its rival SVOD platforms' earnings over the next few years.
S&P Global
FortuneNetflix has revised its spending on original content over the past decade. However, that seems to have plateaued in recent years. Nevertheless, Netflix has pledged to spend $17 billion in 2024, 35% up from the previous year. Furthermore, the management has insisted in the Q1 earnings call this year that a good chunk of the $17 billion would be spent on original content creation.
NielsenNielsenThe data garnered and compiled by Nielson shows a healthy share of 50.8% views for linear TV as of March 2024.
NielsenHowever, just a few years back, linear TV used to have a 60% share of view. Furthermore, Netflix has increased its share of views by 2.9% in this time. The inevitable decline of linear TV is also echoed by PwC in its report on linear TV, where, the accounting firm sees an accelerated decline of $15 billion in revenues annually till 2027 for traditional TV in the next few years.
PwCThis represents steady growth for the streaming market, which is expected to hit close to $200 billion in revenue by 2028. However, most of the opportunities for Netflix lie in developing regions in the APAC space. Netflix reported the highest gain of 65% in paid subscribers in the first nine months of this year compared to last year in the APAC region.
With a rebound in [url="]consumer spending[/url] in 2025, global ad revenue is projected to hit $1 trillion in 2025 as per GM. And this would benefit tech companies in particular. This is because tech companies can offer advertisers the ability to scale up their reach, making it cost-effective for advertisers. Tech companies' robust algorithm forges incredible insightful analytics for most advertisers. Furthermore, tech companies allow the commercialization of users' data, helping advertisers maintain a close connection between the products and services displayed and the user's purchase and consumption behaviours.
S&P GlobalThis is why PwC expects advertising revenue to be the fastest-growing segment for streaming companies. Advertising revenue is expected to grow at a CAGR of 14.1% till 2028 versus a meagre 5% CAGR of subscription revenue over the same period. PwC also expects advertising revenue would constitute 28% of the total revenue of streaming companies in 2028 up from 20% in 2023.
PwCNetflix launched its ad-supported tier in November 2022 to boost sales. With a robust algorithm and a subscriber pool of over 282 million users, Netflix is an appealing platform for advertisers, especially running commercials during its popular shows like Squid Games, Stranger Things and Wednesday. The monthly user of Netflix's ad-supported tier has grown from 22 million in January to 70 million in November this year. While its next biggest competitor
Netflix SEC FilingsWalt Disney, recently disclosed 30% of its global users of Disney+ are subscribed to its ad-supported tier. This would bring the ad-supported tier subscriber count to 36.81 million, even though the number of subscribers for ad-supported tiers of Hulu, ESPN, Disney+ Hotstar and Star India are yet to be known. Furthermore, Netflix said in November that over 50% of its new signups are for ad-supported tier in ad-supported countries, which is indicative of the momentum its ad-supported tier has picked up lately.
In 2021, the National Football League (NFL) inked an 11-year media rights deal worth $111 billion with a cohort of broadcasters, which include CBS, Fox, NBC, ESPN and Amazon. The $100 billion valuation of media rights is indicative of the traction sports leagues around the world are getting. Netflix landed a deal to air two NFL games on Christmas Day this year. The deal is worth $150 million with options to air at least one game on each of the Christmas Day in 2025 and 2026. And the result was blistering; the Ravens-Texans game had an average minute viewer of 24.3 million. It reached 27 million viewers during Beyonce's halftime performance. Streaming live sports would be the holy grail for the media industry for the next few years. This is because live sports give lodge to a community of supporters of teams, allowing them for real-time interactions. Such sporting rights not only present Netflix an opportunity to attract hard-core sports enthusiasts for subscription revenue but also lay out an incredible road to earn hefty fees to run commercials during halftime.
CNBC
Seeking AlphaSeeking Alpha has graded Netflix a D- for the valuation factor, which is not particularly encouraging for investors. If we try to break down the valuation grade, we can observe that the Price/Sales and Price/Book both the TTM and forward are massively overshoot and display the stock is trading at huge premiums in these metrics. However, the TTM PEG ratio is somewhat a sign of relief for investors as it is 0.76, indicating the growth expectations the market had on the streaming platform. At the same time, it is important to note that the forward PEG is 1.64, highlighting a slowdown in growth expectations for Netflix.
AdweekThe highly anticipated clash between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson was expected to garner almost 60 million viewers for Netflix. However, Mike Tyson's return to the ring instead landed Netflix in the lawsuit. A man named Denton from Florida had accused Netflix of breach of contract with subscribers for the persistent glitches, buffering and outages. This hindered Netflix's reputation for streaming live sports and would dent advertisers' confidence in Netflix to run commercials during halftime and breaks of live sporting events. However, the recent success of the Chiefs-Steelers and Raven-Texans game on Christmas should restore advertisers' confidence. Furthermore, Netflix has lately shown its ambition to bring live sports into its platform. Starting in 2025, Netflix would stream WWE's flagship programs, including Raw, SmackDown, and special live events like WrestleMania, SummerSlam, and Royal Rumble; an exclusive media rights deal Netflix landed for $5 billion. However, Netflix needs to be incredibly sincere in providing viewers with streaming experiences comparable to ESPN+, as only top-notch live streaming experience would dictate Netflix's fate in airing live sporting events.
The ad-supported tier helped Netflix gain a lot of subscribers last year and it will continue to do so, albeit at a smaller rate. However, the bulk of the opportunity comes from ad revenue run on its ad-supported tier and during the commercial breaks of sporting events like WWE. Netflix also secured the exclusive rights to air FIFA Women's World Cup 2027 and 2031 for the US and Puerto Rico. Furthermore, The NFL's 11-year, $111 billion media rights deal has an out clause after the 2029 season with all of its media partners except Disney. By that time, Netflix would not only be featured in streaming live sporting events but also have accumulated a much larger ad-supported viewer base that the advertisers would find incredibly tempting and there lies an opportunity for Netflix. However, the valuation grade of D- indicates portfolio managers should not expect any substantial growth in the stock price based on the fundamentals.This article first appeared on GuruFocus.