In a world with increasingly volatile economics and changing consumer habits, broadcasting live sport has been one of the more reliable ways for companies to generate revenue.
And live sport – and entertainment – is one of the few industries whose financial success is unlikely to be significantly compromised by artificial intelligence in the coming years.
That means more and more companies have taken an interest in buying the rights to show sports events, which means more TV subscriptions than ever before are necessary for fans wanting to watch all of the action.
A football fan in the UK, for example, must subscribe to Sky Sports, TNT Sports, Amazon Prime and Premier Sports, if they want to watch all of the matches across the Premier League, Champions League and Scottish Premiership.
And they must pay for an annual TV licence to watch other matches on the BBC and ITV.
Without taking advantage of special offers, other sports can require even more subscriptions and even more money.
“It certainly helps when you can say to a fan that they only need to buy one subscription to see everything in one sport,” says Pete Oliver, CEO of growth markets for DAZN, a global sports streaming service.
“If a sport is very fragmented, we would say it’s not going to be a great proposition for the fan [for us to be involved], and it’s probably not going to be a great commercial prospect for us.
“The cost of entertainment [subscriptions] generally will increase over time.
“There is natural inflation in the market, there is a lot of competition for sports rights, the athletes want to be paid more money, and the leagues want to do what is right for them, and if they can get somebody to pay more for the content, they will”