An article in eMarketer yesterday that discussed the adoption of online and mobile platforms by sports leagues is a reminder that video content is increasingly transitioning to digital platforms. Many of these sports leagues are finding that digital viewership is not cannibalizing traditional viewership as audiences use different screens depending on the time of day, where they are, etc. and many will also multi-task and use multiple screens as once. The gains from adopting online platforms can be great as evidenced by the hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues each of the top four sport leagues received from paid content, advertising and other revenue from their digital properties in 2010.
In the case of sports, the evidence is pretty strong that digital platforms are not replacing traditional platforms. This makes sense intuitively as sports is something that people prefer to watch in real-time and offering content on more platforms captures more viewers such as those who are at work and don’t have access to a tv or those in different time zones and countries. I think a similar argument can be made for news broadcasts. On the other hand, I find it difficult to make this argument for traditional tv shows (except for shows like American Idol) although I have not seen clear evidence that suggests that tv viewership is being cannibalized by digital platforms. In this respect, I do sympathize with tv content owners.
However, whether we like it or not, everything that we do is moving towards being digital including watching tv and sports is an example of this. The question is how quickly this will happen and whether we as marketers can successfully monetize and measure it.
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1008590
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