OTT services pick live sport to expand subscriber base | Mumbai news
In a virtual press meet last week, Netflix announced the launch of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) programming on its platform in India. The shift is part of a global deal between WWE and Netflix which started streaming WWE content in the US, UK and Canada from January. In India, WWE moved to Netflix from Sony’s sports TV channels from April 1. Sony was home to WWE’s marquee events ‘WrestleMania’, ‘SummerSlam’ and its popular weekly shows like ‘Raw’ for the last 10 years.
Broadcast Audience Research Council did not share WWE’s latest TV ratings but a ‘Scroll’ report in 2019 said India has 335 million unique TV viewers for WWE annually with 34% of the audience between ages 15 and 30. WWE fan base comes from India’s tier 2 and tier 3 cities in states like Maharashtra, Punjab, Haryana and Delhi.
On why Netflix picked WWE, Brandon Riegg, vice president, non-fiction series & sports, at Netflix, said, “WWE are best-in-class story-tellers and sports entertainers. Their audiences have been incredibly consistent for decades…WWE made a lot of sense for us.”
Of WWE YouTube channel’s 100 million subscribers, 34 million are in India. “Netflix expects a lot of value to come from the India fanbase. It is the number two sport in India so we have high hopes in terms of performance” Riegg said, without citing the number of new subscribers it expects to add.
Mihir Shah, vice president at research and insights firm Media Partners Asia said major OTT platforms are doubling down on mass-appeal entertainment. “JioHotstar’s new vertical, Sparks, fuses influencer-driven content with traditional OTT. Amazon Prime Video integrated with MX Player to expand its AVOD business. Netflix has added CID, Crime Patrol, and The Kapil Sharma Show, broadening its reach amongst Indian television viewers. With WWE next in line, Netflix is crafting a mass-entertainment funnel to drive new subscriptions and explore the potential for an ad-supported model in India.” Netflix closed the year at 15 million paying subscribers, Shah added.
Indranil Blah, founder, AMP Sports and Entertainment, however, said WWE may lose its core audience as it moves to Netflix. “At least in India, Netflix and WWE don’t seem to have an obvious fit. Netflix is as premium as it gets and WWE is mass-market. It is one property that is close to cricket in mass appeal and reach in terms of demographics,” he said.
Yet most OTT services seem to be relying on live sports to bulk up subscriptions. Amazon Prime Video is the exclusive streaming service for 66 regular-season NBA games in 2025, including the Emirates NBA cup and the NBA Playoffs. In Japan, the service is showing Major League Baseball games.
Gradually all live sports will move to streaming, said Streambox Media founder Anuj Gandhi, who does not rule out bids by Amazon, Netflix and YouTube when Indian Premier League media rights come up for renewal in two years’ time. Asked how Netflix will approach sports, Reigg said, “We are looking at the biggest events and the buzziest. There are a lot of options in terms of entertainment and programming that you can pick from our service and live sport falls in the same overall category of options. Our job is to identify the most compelling options and make them ‘can’t miss’ opportunities in terms of viewership,” he said.
However, Blah doesn’t foresee streaming companies picking large live sport properties in India. “Even globally, they are still testing the waters, like Prime Video with the NBA. The only live sport making sense in India is IPL and none of the firms are anywhere close to looking at the property because with IPL you cannot just test the waters, it means making deep investments,” Blah said.
Gandhi argues eventually consumer pull will play a role in deciding live sport platforms. “They want everything ‘on-demand’ and this is a fundamental change from even five years ago,” he said. Blah believes since live sport still rides on appointment viewing, the value of TV will not diminish. “TV remains a lean-back experience for the masses, while streaming compliments on-the-go and new immersive viewing experiences,” Mihir Shah said.
Video OTT is expected to grow from 47 million households in 2024 to 65 million in 2027, with 144 million subscriptions, averaging approximately 2.2 subscriptions per household, a new Ficci-EY report said.
