Live Sports & Monetization: Public Service Broadcasters Maximizing Live Sports Opportunities
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PSBs across the world are making the most of limited resources to enrich live sports coverage around ancillary content and platforms, and monetizing the resulting services. Here we focus on the content and coverage rather than technical issues around workflow and multi-platform distribution.
The year 2025 was one of major change for many PSBs in their approach to live sports. Seeking to capitalize on existing rights or partnerships to increase revenue, there was a real focus on increased personalization and the incorporation of ancillary content both around the events and the personalities involved.
There has been growing emphasis on attracting star commentators or pundits, but at the risk of forgetting the old maxim that content itself is king, rather than the packaging. When the punditry is strong, however, content is enhanced and new audiences are captivated by accentuating the beauty of a sport as well as drawing attention to some of its finer points.
It is a tactic that is working out well for CBS Sports, one of the most venerable providers in the US, which has seized the opportunity of the 2026 FIFA World Cup to make a major play for association football, or soccer. There have already been many false dawns for the game in the US promoted by MLS (Major League Soccer), usually on the back of an ageing super star from Europe or Latin America, which has included George Best, David Beckham and most recently Lionel Messi. But now audiences are growing, stimulated also by the success over recent years of the US women’s soccer team.
An Open Goal
CBS Sports decided that the impending World Cup presented a unique, once in a lifetime opportunity to capitalize on a wave of interest ahead of the tournament and finally cement a more sustained audience for premium tournaments and events at the club level worldwide. Accordingly, it has acquired rights to some major European competitions, such as the UEFA Champions League and Italy’s Serie A, although losing out to NBC Sports for the English Premier League (EPL). It had to content itself with the English Football League (EFL) Cup in that country, the second line knock out tournament, although still amassing a considerable overall package of European soccer sufficiently attractive to gain audience share.
A key move in keeping with the times was the hiring of top pundit talent spearheaded by France’s Thierry Henry, feted both as a most elegant striker in his day and now a feisty entertaining commentator. This is incorporated in its 24/7 Sports Golazo Network.
Admittedly CBS Sport’s strategy could be somewhat derailed by FIFA’s own goal of setting absurdly high prices for the matches, which unless trimmed may have the effect of confining audiences more to local wealthy individuals than genuine fans from the countries concerned. This will diminish the atmosphere, with an inevitable impact on TV viewing given the modern demand for the incorporation of crowd reactions and behavior in the coverage.
The full impact of that remains to be seen, and so far CBS Sports’ strategy built around top-quality pundits and production seems to be paying off. But it is important to keep things in context, as can be seen by considering the example of the BBC’s coverage of the EPL in the UK, which is confined largely to the longstanding highlights package called Match of the Day.
This had been hosted by former England striker Gary Lineker for almost 26 years before his exit from the program in 2025 when it was feared viewing would tank as a result. In the event numbers did temporarily slip by 10% but the formula proved more durable than had been feared, given its entrenched place for many in their Saturday and Sunday night viewing calendar as the only place to catch up on highlights of all the matches FTA (Free To Air).
A Position Of Strength
Some PSBs have been able to capture rights for sports that are premium in their countries, even if not as expensive as the EPL is in the UK. France Televisions early in 2025 renewed its contract for the Six Nations rugby union tournament in a four-year deal worth just over €30 million (about $35 million) per year.
This was significant because in France rugby rivals football for popularity, second only to New Zealand in relative TV audience share for the sport. The 2025 Six Nations tournament attracted strong viewership, with French team matches averaging 7.3 million viewers with a 45.7% audience share. The final match of the series between France and Scotland peaked at 10.7 million viewers.
France Televisions also owns country rights to the world’s biggest cycling event, the Tour de France, as well as French Open tennis and the Olympic Games, so has a stronger premium sports content portfolio than most public broadcasters. But it is also in a delicate state financially, and in December 2025 revealed it might be forced into selling Six Nations games in the coming season to meet debt reduction commitments, rather than as part of a coherent monetization strategy.
Its president Delphine Ernotte noted in Les Echos newspaper in November 2025 that the broadcaster had to find €150 million in savings over the coming year. Furthermore, Ernotte added that some hard choices would have to be made over sporting rights given that these were most readily cashable.
This highlights the predicament a number of PSBs are in, forced to sell off their jewels to meet debts rather than strengthen their position in their domestic sports TV markets. This also makes it harder to hold onto their best jewels in subsequent rights negotiations, which typically in Europe come up every three or four years, although often over longer periods in the US.
Government Mandates
In India cricket is the clear number one national sport, and here too state broadcaster Prasar Bharati has been striving to maximize its privileged status under the country’s 2007 Sports Act. The Act mandates that any private broadcaster holding live rights to sporting events of “national importance” must share the live signal for FTA transmission. Furthermore, the public broadcaster receives 25% of advertising revenues from the private broadcaster.
Prasar Bharati receives a relatively modest $270 million a year from the government for investment in content and infrastructure but has benefited from a fairly aggressive digital first strategy over the last five years. This has been promulgated through its DD Sports channel, which has invested heavily in folding back-stories of athletes and participants into primary coverage. As Prasar Bharati put it, “we show players, fans, referees, third umpires and even managers and officials close-up, rather than as pawns jostling for position on a faraway field.”
The broadcaster also underlined its approach of leveraging major global sports such as cricket, football and tennis to expand audiences for local sports which have potential for significant audience growth. These include one of the world’s oldest outdoor sports kho-kho, involving tagging and running, as well as kabaddi, which may have derived more recently from British Bulldog during the days of the British Empire. There is also the annual bullock-cart race held at Kila Raipur Sports festival, known as the rural Olympics from Punjab.
Regional Differences
From the perspective of sports and viewers generally, PSBs are often the last bastion for FTA viewing of premium live events, but they are much better placed in some countries than others. Japan is one of the worse cases, where national broadcaster NHK has not matched its renown for technical innovation with actions to hold onto premium sports rights.
Partly as a result, the entry and increasing dominance of streamers has led to far greater fragmentation of sports coverage than in most other comparable economies.
This applies not just to global sports such as association football, but those especially popular in Japan, including a lot of contact sports. The country’s three most popular sports are baseball, association football and boxing in that order, with various forms of martial arts still in demand but on the decline.
UK based streamer DAZN is now the closest Japan has to a universal sports hub, rather than NHK, with all the major sports covered to at least some degree. The streamer now has exclusive rights to the country’s J. League (Japan Professional Football League), for example.
Other big streamers have muscled in, and in August 2025 Netflix seized exclusive rights to stream the 2026 World Baseball Classic (WBC) in Japan, held in March 2026. This was the streamer’s first major foray into live sports outside North America.
Japan’s steep decline in FTA coverage indicates what can happen in the relative absence of regulatory protection for marquee events. It also indicates a lack of consideration for the role FTA coverage can play sustaining viewing interest in the sports streamers and pay TV operators hold premium rights to, at least beyond the immediate dedicated fan base.
But this is against a backdrop of rights repatriation to the leagues and sports bodies themselves. Continuing provision of FTA coverage is very much part of that mix.
This leaves PSBs scrambling to build suitable alliances, with growing divergence not just regionally but even locally over longer-term strategy and shorter-term maneuvers.
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