Netflix sports streaming could happen down the line

Netflix (NFLX) reported its first quarterly loss of subscribers in a decade on Tuesday afternoon, and the disappointing earnings results reflected an ongoing challenge facing the streaming giant as more competitors enter the space.

While some of these competitors have increasingly diversified by streaming live sports on their platforms, Netflix executives aren’t yet sold on the idea.

“I’m not saying we never would do sports, but we would have to see a path to growing a big revenue stream and a big profit stream with it,” the company’s co-CEO and COO Ted Sarandos said on the earnings call, adding that Netflix has seen success in “sports-adjacent programming” such as “Formula 1: Drive To Survive.”

According to Santosh Rao, head of research at Manhattan Venture Partners, content is “important” for Netflix, but it also needs “to get into some other sticky things like more gaming, maybe sports. Advertising revenue of course can go in all these additional levers that they need to pull because this is not working.”

The company announced on Tuesday that it would be adding cheaper, advertisement-supported products. Shares of Netflix sank as much as 38% on Wednesday.

(Source: Netflix)

‘We do think sports is a natural lever to pull over time’

Some of Netflix’s biggest competitors are already in the sports space.

Amazon (AMZN) paid roughly $1 billion per year to stream the NFL’s Thursday Night Football starting in the 2022 season. Apple (AAPL) also entered the live sports streaming…

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