In its latest report, entitled 'Online Sports Video: Rights, Revenues and Forecasts' Screen Digest examines the online sports video (OSV) market in the US and UK, including the contribution made to revenues for the next five years by advertising and subscriptions, as well as pay-per-view and download-to-own.
Screen Digest forecasts that US revenues from domestic OSV consumption will increase from $762m in 2007 to $2.3bn in 2012. In the UK, OSV revenues will treble from £23.5m ($43.2m) to £82.9m ($153m).
In the same way that sport content was a major driver of pay-TV adoption, sports will be the single biggest driver of consumption for online video, the report says.
Screen Digest forecasts that the number of OSV streams/downloads served in the domestic US market will increase from 5.2bn last year to 10.8bn by 2012.
In the UK the number of streams/downloads will more than double from 398m in 2007 to 1.2bn in five years time.
Most significantly, OSV accounted for 35 per cent of all online TV streams/downloads consumed in the US in 2007. In the UK, OSV constituted a 46 per cent share of all online TV consumed in 2007.
OSV includes live online simulcasts, delayed game coverage, highlights, clips, sports news, review shows, talking heads and analysis programming among other sports related video content.
The analysis takes in all sports, from major branded 'premium' sports, such as the English Premier League, UEFA Champions League, Wimbledon Tennis, National Football League and Major League Baseball, to more 'niche' sports such as the Nation Lacrosse League.
