Luminate: Netflix, Amazon Prime Video Build Up New Stores of Original Sports Programming

Netflix and Amazon Prime Video are relatively young by TV-industry standards, but they are fast becoming bigger players in the sports-content arena.

New data from Luminate shows that Amazon Prime Video and Netflix have been growing their share of original sports programming over the past four years among general-audience streamers. Netflix, for example, accounts for more than 26% of the programming about specific sports, teams, well-known athletes and sports “adjacent” programming between 2020 and 2024, while Amazon Prime Video accounts for 19%.

The statistics do not take into account sports programming available on the ESPN+ streaming hub, nor for the programming available on services such as the Fox Sports 1 cable network. Luminate, which is part of PMC, Variety’s parent company, produces data focuses on original streaming movies nad TV programs on such subscription-based streaming platforms including AMC+, Amazon Prime, Discovery+, Disney+, Hulu, Max, Netflix, Paramount+ and Peacock.

Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max and NBCUniversal’s Peacock came in next in the listings with 11.5% for Max and 10.3% at Peacock.

Disney+ is listed at 5.2%, but Disney recently unveiled new access for users of the service to a broad sampling of ESPN+ content — and more for those subscribers who opt to buy a larger “bundle” of Disney streaming services, which also include Hulu.

The sports programming in question tends to tilt toward biographical, documentary, historical and talk, and includes programs that range from “Game Theory with Bomani Jones” on Max to “NFL Tailgate Takedown” on Discovery+.

The most prevalent sports covered in the shows were soccer and football, followed by “multi-sport,” basketball and racing, according to Luminate’s findings.