Sports streaming pain points revealed in report

A report from InterDigital and Park Associates – Streaming Live Sports: Where Opportunity Meets Complexity – reveals a plethora of information about how US sports fans view content, and the pros and cons of sports streaming.

The research explores how people consume live sports in the US – from broadcast to SVOD services, D2C subscription models, pay-per-view, and paywall systems. It also covers the pain points viewers are facing and how streamers can keep up with demand.

Key findings from the report include:

• 42% of US internet households paid for a traditional pay TV service in Q1 2025, which is down from 62% in Q1 2020.
• Over half (55%) of SVOD households subscribe to five or more SVOD services.
• Sports fans are among the most valuable viewers, spending an average of US$88 per month on streaming services, compared with US$64 per month by those who don’t watch sports.
• 40% of sports viewers under 35 watch sports on social media platforms, compared to just 13% of those aged 55+.
• More female sports fans than men stream sports exclusively (49% vs 42%).
• 32% of sports viewers find placing bets in a streaming service attractive (spiking to 57% of sports viewers aged 25-44).
• More than half (57%) of sports viewers face challenges when viewing live sports, including nearly a third (30%) highlighting that they did not subscribe to a streaming service airing a sporting event they had planned or wanted to watch. Other more technical challenges that viewers face include buffering and overall image quality.
• Just under a third (31%) of sports viewers aged 18-24 cited poor video quality (freezing, buffering, etc.), insufficient bandwidth for high quality streaming (25%), and lag (20%) as common problems when streaming sports.
• Poor video quality is a particular problem for younger age groups who enjoy interactivity while watching sports, such as multi-view and in-game stats.

Poor video quality is increasingly impacting the sports viewing experience, says InterDigital, with one solution being more efficient video codecs. HEVC is well-suited for high-resolution content like 4K, where its compression efficiency helps reduce file sizes and improves bandwidth usage. It is also designed to handle the increased data demands of HDR video.

H.266 (VVC) offers even higher compression efficiency, improved video quality, and support for ultra-high resolutions particularly suited to streaming high-resolution content over mobile networks and broadcasting in ultra-high definition.

“Sports viewers should not have to deal with technical issues when watching their favorite sports teams. The broadcast and streaming ecosystem needs to work together to alleviate pain points or risk damaging their reputation for future events,” said Lionel Oisel, head of video labs at InterDigital. “While streaming services need to think holistically about the challenges that come with live video streams, more advanced video codecs can significantly reduce buffering and latency and improve the overall user experience.”

“The sports media landscape is transforming, as sports programming transitions from traditional broadcast and cable networks to streaming,” adds Michael Goodman, senior analyst at Parks Associates. “Sports fans now have more ways than ever to engage with their favorite teams or sports. Many niche sports and out-of-market matches, previously unavailable, are now easily accessible, which can expand the sports audience, and providers have new opportunities to engage viewers in interactive activities, such as multicasts, live chats, and in-game betting, provided the experience is easy and seamless.”

The full report is available here.