Are We Surprised Live Sports Are Driving TV Viewership?
By Movieguide® Contributor
Live sports continue to be a major drive for TV viewership, revealed by jumps in popularity due to the Super Bowl and NHL 4 Nations face-off.
This year’s Super Bowl was a record-breaking event, largely boosted by cross streaming on Fox and Tubi, which provided access for free. A record-breaking 127.7 million viewers tuned into Fox’s programming for the game, making it the second most popular TV day since Nieslen began combining streaming data with cable, following behind only 2024’s Super Bowl and just by 500 million minutes – a relatively small margin.
With the massive boost from the Super Bowl, Tubi accounted for 2% of all TV watch time in February, the highest share it has enjoyed since last July.
While the Super Bowl drove viewers to streaming, the NHL 4 Nations face-off drew record numbers to cable, as the championship game — where the Canada defeated the U.S. — became the most-watched hockey game of all time on ESPN with 9.3 million viewers. It was also the largest audience ESPN+ has ever received for a non NFL game.
The popularity of these events is not particularly surprising given the track record of live sports, however, it does continue to spell out the grim future for cable as it is clear that millions of Americans are happy to stream sports when that option if available. This is especially true among younger audiences, as the Tubi stream of the Super Bowl skewed towards the 18-34 age demographic, for which viewers were 38% more likely to be in than for the total game average.
As for streaming trends as a whole for the month of February, YouTube continued its dominance, accounting for nearly 27% of all streaming, while capturing 11.6% of all TV usage, a record for the platform. YouTube continues to be the king of entertainment and has no plans of slowing down as it enters into its 20th year.
Movieguide® previously reported:
There’s no question that YouTube is an extremely popular social media site, however, some statistics from Pew reveal just how widespread the site is.
While it may seem like many platforms are used by pretty much every American, YouTube is by far and away the most commonly used site, per Pew’s research. Eighty-five percent of all American adults that Pew has ever questioned about their internet usage have used YouTube, compared to Facebook (70%), Instagram (50%), TikTok (33%) and X or Twitter (21%). Furthermore, the site is even more popular among the age demographic younger than 50. More than 90% of adults in that age group use the site, as do 86% of Americans aged 50-65.
Unsurprisingly, YouTube is even more popular with teenagers, with 90% of teens using the site, 73% using it daily and 15% using it constantly. Furthermore, 32% of Americans use the site to receive their news, a number that is climbing every year as more people turn to social media for current events.
It is no wonder that YouTube has transcended the world of social media to become one of the most popular sources of entertainment in the world, eclipsing even Netflix and Disney. For years YouTube has been the most watched streamer month by month, and its dominance in the industry only continues to grow as it adds even more features. In 2023, it added NFL Sunday Ticket to YouTube TV, drawing millions of new subscribers, and the platform continues to focus on growing its TV audience.
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