RESEARCH INSIGHT

An easy win: The value of global sporting events to PSM

10 September 2026

Events such as the FIFA World Cup are always big showpieces for public service media and provide a lot of value for audiences. But what does that look like in the current fragmented media ecosystem, and is it going to be possible for public media to keep these events, given the spending power of global streaming platforms who are keeping an eye on live sports as a path to new subscribers?

A whole new ball game

The rise of dedicated pay TV sports channels in the 1990s across Europe was the first disruption to the rather cosy relationship that had existed between the governing bodies of sport (often the rights holders) and public service broadcasters who viewed sport as being part of the national cultural calendar. Suddenly, there was competition, and commercial organisations with deep pockets who were willing to make exclusive access to live sport, in the words of Sky’s Rupert Murdoch the ‘battering ram of pay TV’.

There remains a perception that PSMs have been priced out of elite sport and have vacated the playing arena to the deep pockets of both pay TV and more recently the global streamers. The reality is more complex.

So far, the global streamers such as Netflix have tended to have limited interest in live sport. In contrast they have connected with sports fans (and created new ones) through documentaries such as Drive to Survive, bringing the sport of F1, and its stars up close and personal to existing and new audiences.  However, as growth in markets flattens, live sport or hybrid sporting events (for example, unsanctioned boxing) begins to offer a greater potential value to some of these global platforms. The UEFA Champions League Tuesday night match has become a fixture for streamer Amazon Prime.  While from 2027, Europe’s premier football competition will be shown on Paramount + in the UK, having paid over a £1billion for the four-year deal and snatching the rights from TNT Sports. Meanwhile the opening of the NFL season will be launched for many fans by Netflix carrying the San Francisco 49ers v Los Angelas Rams week one match from Melbourne, signifying not just how media sports rights are changing, but also the global expansion plans of sports such as the NFL, and the key role they see the streamers in that strategy.

Rights holders of sport will always welcome new entrants into the market, as they often trade short-term financial reward against the wide exposure they can enjoy from FTA PSM coverage.

The value of PSM sport

There remains a perception that PSMs have been priced out of elite sport and have vacated the playing arena to the deep pockets of both pay TV and more recently the global streamers. The reality is more complex. Programme spend on sport by UK PSMs sits at around £700m, meaning that it is among the highest in terms of PSM spend for original programming in the UK. On July 4 this year, for example, the free-to air PSMs offered a rich diet of top class elite international sports coverage as the BBC used all its platforms to cover both the FIFA World Cup and Grand Slam tennis from Wimbledon.

All the commercial PSMs offered sport accessed via television, online or mobile with ITV and STV covering the Rugby Nations Championship including South Africa V England and Argentina V Scotland, while on Channel 5, viewers could get up early to watch T20 World Cup cricket as India took on England. To complete the importance of sport to the legacy PSMs, Channel 4 later in the day offered live coverage of the F1 British Grand Prix that would see another podium finish for the iconic Lewis Hamilton.

While this may have been an exceptional Saturday in a summer of sport, what it demonstrates is that sport does and should matter to PSMs. The value of much sport lies in its ‘live-ness’, but also – and this is particularly true of international sport – its ability to bring countries and communities together around shared expressions of identity and offer moments, however transeunt of communal joy and occasional despair!

Regulation and access

Crucial in protecting certain events from disappearing from FTA PSM has been, and will continue to be, legislation. In the UK for example, 1996 saw governmental intervention that established ‘protected events’ including the FIFA World Cup, the Olympics and other ‘national’ events being exclusively shown on subscription-based pay TV (such as Sky). This was at a time when about only 4% of households in the UK had access to the internet. Over the years this list of protected events has evolved (into A and B listed events), while this summer has seen the government (through the 2024 Media Act) extend the protection of certain events to prevent global streamers such as Netflix or Amazon Prime exclusively showing them. Other countries such as Australia and Germany have also used legislation to protect wide access to certain key national and international events.

The reality remains that much live top tier sports content sits on pay TV channels or can only be accessed through subscription-based apps. But, when PSMs can secure rights to such events (often through the implementation of governmental legislation), they can offer universal access, and this can provide key shared cultural moments across their platforms. For example, the men’s FIFA 2026 World Cup matches involving Scotland and England generated the largest television UK audiences of this year.  When England played DR Congo in a knockout match, a television audience peaked at 16.3 million and, when they played Mexico in the following round, 9.1 million people watched on the BBC between 2- 4am in the morning. This pattern is repeated in other countries with a strong PSM culture including New Zealand (TVNZ), Malaysia (RTM) and South Africa (SABC). In Scotland, STV, a major commercial PSM enjoyed a significant uplift in its crucial advertising revenue during the World Cup, despite Scotland’s ill-fated campaign.  The 5% advertising revenue increase comes at a time when the company faces challenging headwinds as a platform for delivering its PSM content.

That same day the BBC Sport website set a record with 330 million video views and the sports website, and the BBC Sport app had over 15 million unique users. This indicates that across platforms at key national moments, PSM still offers the audience the space to share and connect in these albeit fleeting moments of collective fervour and shared memories.

A challenge for PSMs, who are of course themselves streamers, will be finding the finances to invest both in the television coverage, but also in the new digital sporting formats (such as podcasts) that are often used by commercial streamers to attract audiences, even when they have no live sport to offer.