MediaTalk | Season 3 | Ep. 51 - Which Teams, Streamers are Winning the Battle for Sports Fans

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Mike Reynolds: Hi, I'm Mike Reynolds, a senior reporter covering the media industry with S&P Global Market Intelligence's tech, media, and telecom news team. Welcome to "MediaTalk," a podcast hosted by S&P Global, where the news and research staff explore issues in the ever-evolving media landscape. Today I'm joined by Brian Bacon. Brian is a research analyst on the Consumer Insights team with the Kagan Media Research Group. He's responsible for fielding and processing the results from the MediaCensus U.S. online consumer surveys. How are we doing today, Brian?

Brian Bacon: Hey, Mike. I'm doing great. Thanks for having me.

Mike Reynolds: Brian, we appreciate you joining us again on "MediaTalk." Last time Brian was our guest, we discussed some of the findings from Kagan's Consumer Insights about the U.S. online video world overall, as well as some of the specific content genre choices by subscribers to top VOD services like Netflix and Disney Plus. We also talked a little bit about sports. Today we're gonna be more focused on the latter in three different segments: professional sports viewing by U.S. TV markets in '25, the importance of sports to SVOD services, and the top US pro sports teams this year. We're gonna start with the sports viewing, but before we do, Brian, can you give our listeners a sense of how the Consumer Insight survey comes together in data collection?

Brian Bacon: Sure thing. We field several online surveys throughout the year, including spring and fall in the US. Europe, which is actually in the field right now in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, and Sweden. And then we also run our Asia survey in Q2. That's in South Korea, India, and China. But the majority of my work is focused on the MediaCensus survey, as you said, which is fielded in both Q1 and now we've also been doing Q3 for the past two years. For each year we do that, these surveys have a much larger sample size, which allows us to drill down to more specific sets of respondents. For instance, the like TV market stuff that we'll be getting into, and the sports content that we'll be covering today. I use the results from our Q3 MediaCensus survey, which had 13,500 respondents.

Mike Reynolds: Yeah, the Q3 and start of Q4 are the busiest times of the sports year in the States, so that's really good. Brian, I read your piece on the sports TV viewing—a lot of interesting stuff here. But before we get into the specifics about the seven leagues you guys looked at, can you tell us which markets are home to the most average professional sports team watchers overall?

Brian Bacon: Dallas, Buffalo, and Cincinnati had the largest share of respondents viewing professional sports. They were all at 79%. The NFL is the main driver for most of those. For example, in Buffalo, 71% of respondents said they watched NFL games, so that leaves 8% that watch sports but not the NFL.

Mike Reynolds: Sabres aren't too good, sorry. Alright. What about fans watching in-market teams versus those that play elsewhere?

Brian Bacon: Yeah. Local teams tend to dominate, but it isn't always the case. If you look at LA, they've got two NFL teams that moved there almost a decade ago. But the respondents are split in that market — 29% are a fan of the Rams or Chargers, and 23% are a fan of an out-of-market team.

Mike Reynolds: A lot of transitory folks over that way too. So that's not so surprising. I think there's also a cool stat about pro team viewing in one of the college sports hotbeds.

Brian Bacon: Columbus, Ohio. They don't have an NFL franchise, but 61% of respondents in that market said they watched NFL games. And that was a larger share than over half of the markets that do have a team.

Mike Reynolds: All right, let's stay with the NFL, which from a viewing standpoint, is by far the most popular sport here in the US. What did your survey respondents say here?

Brian Bacon: Kansas City took the top spot. 72% of respondents in that market indicated they watched NFL games. Buffalo was right behind, like I mentioned before, at 71%. It's not much of a surprise given the success those teams have had over the past several years.

Mike Reynolds: On the NBA front, I was somewhat surprised, but not really, given that one team that's doing well is really playing well on the court. And the other, I was a little surprised 'cause they're not doing so well. Brian, can you talk a little bit about NBA viewing?

Brian Bacon: Yeah, so NBA viewing dropped in San Antonio from 45% in '24 to 38% in '25, and we chalked that up to the Spurs. They had a rough end of last season, especially with Victor Wembanyama out with injury. But also, some of this comes down to timing for when the survey is fielded. It's missed that early part of the season where everybody was talking about him and how great they were doing. So maybe the viewing would've bumped back up. Sure. And then you've got Houston and Memphis—they had the largest shares of respondents indicating they watched NBA games, and I was figuring that's due to the Rockets. They went from, what was it, 11th to second in the West. And then the Grizzlies also made a big jump. From 13th to eighth, so I chalked it up to that.

Mike Reynolds: Okay. So on-court performance and timing, that makes sense. Alright. Let's move from the NBA to my second favorite sport, the MLB. What are some of the things your survey had covered about baseball?

Brian Bacon: Yeah, the A's are in a tricky situation. They're waiting for their new stadium to be built out in Las Vegas. And right now they're in Sacramento. And viewership for MLB games grew from 31% to 41%. So there is some audience that's there. There's a bit of a

bump. But Philadelphia took the top spot, 50%. I'm figuring that people just like watching Kyle Schwarber hit bombs every game.

Mike Reynolds: Yeah. I guess if the reports are true, he's be around for a little bit longer. He signed a big free agent deal to stay with the Philly, so good luck to them and to viewers in Philly. Let's go to hockey. There was a new team in the new market last year, and fans of the Utah Mammoth, if you will, responded with increased viewing. Brian?

Brian Bacon: Yeah. NHL viewing grew from 12% to 19% in Salt Lake City. You also had a big increase that jumped up in Tampa. But Miami was odd that it declined. Actually, NHL viewership declined in Miami. They just won the Stanley Cup though.

Mike Reynolds: Isn't it like two in a row or already bored by that? I don't know. Seems strange. Alright, let's go to soccer here in the U.S. MLS first if you would, Brian.

Brian Bacon: Yeah. Lionel Messi. He can sure play and apparently draw an audience too. Miami had the largest share of respondents indicating they watch MLS games, 21%, and that's up from 16% last year.

Mike Reynolds: All right. So they switched over from hockey to watch Messi play. Okay, we'll give that, I guess. Alright. How about the ladies kicking it around on the various NWSL pitches around the country?

Brian Bacon: Yeah. Only 5% of total respondents indicated they watched National Women's Soccer League games, but in Seattle that was up at 10%. There are also some markets out there that had a larger share of viewers, but they don't actually have a team. Buffalo, Boston, and Nashville were all at 7%.

Mike Reynolds: All right. That's interesting. And NWSL continues to look to expand, so maybe there'll be some franchises there in the seasons to come. Anyway, let's finish up with another women's sport. This one is in the midst of trying to get a new collective bargaining agreement with its players, the WNBA. Given the team's regular season success, I'm not surprised which market finished on top, Brian.

Brian Bacon: Yeah, we got Minneapolis, Indianapolis, and Atlanta. The largest shares viewing games all around 21, 22%. And it seems that star power and team performance are what's driving viewership. One other thing I wanted to mention too is that 22% of respondents in Raleigh Durham, that market, indicated they watched WNBA games. This is despite they don't have a team, but Raleigh Durham, that market kept coming up as I was looking at the data that they might not be home to a team, but the viewership was pretty high.

Mike Reynolds: If we go down to the college ranks, you know, Duke and North Carolina in that area, certainly those are high-profile college teams. Maybe sports fans need to watch a little bit more after the college games are over. Anyway, Brian, let's move over to sports and subscription video on demand services. Some fascinating survey responses here, I think, among those who are Netflix users. Brian, can you tell us a little bit about the divergent mindset among those who use the top streaming service?

Brian Bacon: We asked respondents who use these services that actually have live sports as part of their content offering how important that was in deciding to use the service. About a quarter of users for Netflix said it was extremely important, but about the same amount said it wasn't important at all.

Mike Reynolds: Netflix, they're growing their sports portfolio, but it's not as big as some of the others. They've got the WWE Raw franchise, they've got a couple of games on Christmas. They're gonna have the World Baseball Classic rights in Japan. They've got the Home Run Derby and Opening Day in MLB. And I guess they'll have the Women's World Cup in '27 and '31 here in the States. But if I think of Netflix, I'm not thinking sports first.

Brian Bacon: Yeah, it strikes me as an eclectic selection of sports content. It probably has something to do with the results that we get from the survey. If you don't wanna miss an NFL game on Christmas or next year's Field of Dreams game, you might decide to subscribe just for that. But what if you're willing to skip those, even if you're a baseball or a football fan?

Mike Reynolds: Yeah. Alright. Let's go over to NBC's Peacock, where sports is very important. They have more live sports. In many cases, replicating the top ones in NBC Sports. Brian, what did you find out about Peacock?

Brian Bacon: Yeah, it's just like with Netflix, live sports is just part of the content offering. And users are gonna be split on how important that was in their decision to use the service. NHL viewers were the most likely to indicate that sports were extremely important in their decision to use Peacock. That was up at 31%. But Peacock's NHL games are actually only limited to just a few markets where they have an NBC Regional Sports Network.

Mike Reynolds: I'm wondering, again, given the survey numbers, maybe Comcast NBC executives wouldn't be so happy given, I mentioned a few sports. They also have the Winter and Summer Olympics. They're into WNBA. There's golf, and they're gonna have MLB starting up this season. This is one of the better sports lineups in streaming, right, Brian?

Brian Bacon: Yeah. But the thing for Comcast is that Peacock isn't the only delivery method that they have for live sports. As an example, there are a few Peacock exclusive games for the NFL, but most of the games are available on NBC.

Mike Reynolds: I think the other side of this, as you guys got the survey results back, there were a significant percentage of SVOD users overall who don't deem live sports to be a significant consideration. That makes sense to me given that most of them may have started as generally entertainment-oriented services.

Brian Bacon: I think part of the problem for SVOD services is that they know sports is an important content type to have. They either have a limited offering, or the live games are available on other sources, like we've talked about. Take Apple TV, for example. They have Friday Night Baseball, but I have a feeling subscribers are more likely to be signing up to watch Severance even if they're a baseball fan.

Mike Reynolds: I would tend to agree. Your survey also looks at the difference among those who value sports relative to the number of SVOD services they subscribed to. As expected, perhaps avid fans of pro sports leagues were much more likely than casual fans to indicate that live sports were extremely important in a decision to use services that offer live games. NFL in particular, Brian, can you talk about that?

Brian Bacon: Yeah, I wasn't too surprised by these results. Some people will subscribe to a service just to watch certain live sports. My wife, for example, is willing to subscribe to any number of services just to watch an NFL game. But I wouldn't; I would just pass.

Mike Reynolds: Roger Goodell loves your wife.

Brian Bacon: Yeah. As for the number of services used, if someone is only using Netflix, I doubt that the reason was just for a couple of NFL games on Christmas. However, if you use several services, you might pick up another one just for sports. There's a big divide between the people that are just using one versus a lot, and there's a lot of different considerations that go into it. About a quarter of NFL viewers indicated live sports was extremely important across the services that have live games. I've already touched on the importance of sports on Peacock among NHL viewers. And then the thing that we should note, though, is that when we asked respondents about that, it was about all sports that are covered on this particular service, not specific to that league.

Mike Reynolds: Alright. Finally, we're gonna just look at some of the data you guys analyzed from survey respondents about their top pro teams across the seven leagues. Brian, what were you guys asking here in particular?

Brian Bacon: Yeah, so in that article, we looked at the franchises respondents indicated they, or someone in their household, was a fan of across all these leagues that we've surveyed. To see which were the most widely selected.

Mike Reynolds: Alright, let's talk some of the top-line stuff here. First, the Top 10 Sports Clubs among Americans, at least those surveyed by Kagan.

Brian Bacon: So we got the Chiefs, Cowboys, Lakers, Eagles, Yankees, Packers, Warriors, Steelers, Bears, and Celtics. So that's six NFL teams, three NBA teams, and one MLB team for the top 10.

Mike Reynolds: Okay. I'm not surprised by most of it. In the U.S., it's the NFL's world, and we just all happen to live in it. Chiefs, as we discussed, have been the most successful team since 2020. They've appeared in five and won three Super Bowls. Dallas, the Cowboys. Yeah, long been America's team. A lot of people love them. Maybe a lot more hate 'em. I don't know. Their Thanksgiving Day matchup averaged 57.2 million viewers. That's the most-watched NFL regular season game in history, and it shattered the previous record by about 15 million. Your thoughts about this, Brian?

Brian Bacon: Yeah, I'm with you. Seeing the Chiefs and Cowboys at the top of the list makes a lot of sense for the reasons you've mentioned. And yeah, the ratings for that game were just huge. The rest of the list includes teams that are a mix. There's some with recent success that may explain it, big star power, or you could just have a devoted widespread fan base. There's a lot of different reasons that could go into those.

Mike Reynolds: I've lived in the New York metro area all my life. I'm glad to see that my Yankees were the top MLB team and fifth overall in the survey. You and I talked about this before, though. Where are the Dodgers? Clearly, they've been baseball's most successful team over the past decade or so.

Brian Bacon: Yeah. There's something about certain franchises that makes them popular across markets. It's like they're an institution. Now, part of this is just a reflection of baseball being a local sport, and New York is the biggest market. Sorry, Mets. As I covered last year in New York, it's the Yankees—and not the Mets—that have the bigger fan base.

Mike Reynolds: Let's see if Steve Cohen has something to change that over the next decade anyway. Brian, you're an Arizona Diamondbacks fan. Do I ask where they rank among MLB teams?

Brian Bacon: They came in 20th. That's not so bad.

Mike Reynolds: Yeah, it's not too shocking for an expansion team that's younger than I am.

Mike Reynolds: Okay. Let's get past the big three sports of the NFL, NBA, and baseball. Brian, what are the most popular NHL, MLS, NWSL, and WNBA teams?

Brian Bacon: The Indiana Fever was the most popular WNBA team at 17th overall. For the NHL, it was the Blackhawks and Bruins that were the most popular. For soccer, Inter Miami, as we covered before with Messi, and then it was the Chicago Red Stars for the NWSL.

Mike Reynolds: As we've mentioned already, Messi makes Inter Miami the top MLS club, and for the Fever, Caitlin Clark, even though she missed most of the past season, I guess she and the team, I think they made it to the semifinals. The Fever, in the '25 season, pushed up, wearing the top of the WNBA rankings. So that's good. Alright. Your survey also delves into top teams by gender and age. Let's go gender first if we could, Brian?

Brian Bacon: Yeah. Among male respondents, the Lakers were the most popular team. For female respondents, it was the Chiefs. Something to keep in mind is that respondents were selecting teams that they or a member of their household were a fan of.

Mike Reynolds: Is that code for Taylor Swift?

Brian Bacon: It could be.

Mike Reynolds: Alright. I think the survey broke respondents down into six different age brackets, so there's a lot of data here. Can you break down a couple of the key headlines for us?

Brian Bacon: Yeah, so younger respondents were more likely to have NBA teams in their top 10, with the Lakers taking the top spot for 18- to 44-year-olds for all three of those age groups in there. For the older groups, NFL teams hold seven to nine of the top 10 spots, depending on which one you're looking at.

Mike Reynolds: As you look back, Brian, on the favorite team research, a couple of things that stand out in your mind overall?

Brian Bacon: Teams do have reach outside their home market. You can look at the Packers, right? Green Bay is a small market, but they're a very popular franchise. Also, it's not just the recent champions. Stars do draw fans. Las Vegas won the WNBA championship, but the Fever had the most fans.

Mike Reynolds: We're gonna finish up here. Brian, maybe a couple of things that surprised you on the team survey.

Brian Bacon: I was surprised to see the NHL teams so low in the rankings. I guess I figured that a team like, say, the Red Wings or some other team would at least break the top 20, but they were much lower.

Mike Reynolds: Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. The original six, these teams have been playing forever. So anyway, one thing we didn't get to today, because as New York Knicks legend

Walt "Clyde" Frazier might say, things are still percolating. But Brian, you have an assessment of consumer insights data on what platform sports fans watch their sports. Can you give us a bit of a tease here?

Brian Bacon: Yeah. So local broadcast channels are still the king. There's a lot of talk about streaming options for sports, everything from exclusive games on services like Netflix to simulcast games on stuff like Peacock, but there's still a significantly smaller share of fans watching games on those services.

Mike Reynolds: Yeah. And there's definitely been some movement, again in the transformation of the RSN world toward more games showing up on local TV stations. Alright, you can check out Brian's more in-depth stories drawn from the consumer insights data that we discussed today on Cap IQ Pro. The platform will also be home to the piece on where sports fans are watching their ball games today. That concludes this episode of "MediaTalk." I just want to thank Brian for spending a lot of time sharing his insights about the business of sports and its importance to the overall media landscape. Much obliged, Brian.

Brian Bacon: It's been a pleasure, Mike. Thanks for having me.

Mike Reynolds: And this is Mike Reynolds. Thanks to all of you for listening. We'll catch up soon on the next edition of "MediaTalk." Bye, everybody, and enjoy the holidays.