Not Even the NFL will be Immune to Supply and Demand Forces

For sports viewing and revenues, as with any other product, supply and demand do matter. 

Huge demand will tend to find a supply, no matter how much the government tries to do about it, while falling demand will lead to changes in supply. And that might already be happening. 

So it likely will be with the Federal Communications Commission’s inquiry into sports broadcasting rights. 

No matter what regulatory tweaks the FCC might pursue in its ongoing sports broadcasting inquiry, live sports rights will remain extraordinarily valuable, at least in the short term. 

source: BCG 

But long term might be quite another story. Regional sports networks already are feeling the strain as a combination of cord cutting and a shift to streaming are threatening the market.

And global sports rights, though growing, are expected to slow. 

source: Deloittte 

A few categories seem better protected, though. Between 2014 and 2024, the top 10 sports properties increased their global media rights value 113 percent, from roughly $15 billion to $32 billion, while the rights of the next 20 properties grew from about $5 billion to $7 billion, or about 40 percent.

High-demand content (NFL, the Olympics, Super Bowl, FIFA World Cup, March Madness finals) might retain a premium. Other content might see less demand and value. 

source: BCG 

The problem is the long term. Short form social media increasingly seems favored by younger viewers, displacing viewership of “full games.”

Study	Year	Key Finding	Link
YouGov Global Sports Survey (via Boston Brand Media)	2023	Only 31% of sports fans aged 18–24 watched live full-length matches, vs. 75% of fans aged 55+	bostonbrandmedia.com
Morning Consult — Gen Z & Sports	2022–23	Gen Z's overall interest in sports remains significantly below older generations; only 53% of Gen Z identify as sports fans vs. 69% of millennials; nearly half had never attended a live professional game	morningconsult.com
Vizrt Viewer Engagement Survey	2023	67% of Gen Z prefer watching sports on their phones vs. 23% of Gen X; 37% access all sports content via mobile only	vizrt.com
eMarketer / Third-Party Data (via eMarketer)	2024	Viewers over 50 are 50% likely to watch an entire game start to finish; viewers under 25 are only 30% likely to do so	emarketer.com
MediaPost / Nielsen "Total TV Dimensions 2024"	2024	Median age of linear TV sports viewer rose from 44 (1995) to 55 (2023), growing 25% vs. 15% population growth	mediapost.com
BCG — Beyond Media Rights	2026	Younger viewers watch fewer minutes of games on both broadcast and OTT; they consume sports via near-live social clips and YouTube highlights rather than full games	bcg.com
GWI Sports Viewership Trends	2025	Share of 16–24 year-old European sports fans watching highlights/recaps online weekly grew 22% since Q2 2024; only 27% of total sports fans watch full games on TV weekly	gwi.com
Deloitte — Re-imagining Media Rights	2025	Short-form sports content on YouTube grew 45% in 2024, totaling 35 billion hours; media rights growth rate slowing from 7.1% CAGR (2014–19) to ~2.7%	deloitte.com
YYZSportsMedia / NBA Data	2024	40% of Gen Z prefer watching highlights over full games; NBA traditional viewership down 19–25% year-over-year	yyzsportsmedia.com
Georgetown Law Tech Review	2024	Viewers aged 18–34 spend 60% of TV time streaming vs. 18% for viewers 65+; cable viewership dropped below 50% of total TV usage for the first time in July 2023	georgetownlawtechreview.org

Generation Z (roughly ages 10 to 28) is less likely to watch live games in full, and far more likely to consume sports through short, on-demand snippets. 

A recent global survey found that just 31 percent of sports fans aged 18 to 24 watched live full-length matches, compared to 75 percent of fans aged 55 or older:

• attention span is shorter (or consumers are accustomed to jumping between content bits)  

• digital platforms are preferred (on demand)

• Personalization (one-size-fits-all does not resonate with a generation raised on algorithmically personalized content feeds)

• Interactivity and viewing on mobile devices

• Cultural relevance (Gen Z often enjoys creator-driven content that is more irreverent, fast-paced or tailored to internet culture).

Whether the FCC has much leeway to change matters is debatable. Even if the problem is fragmentation of the viewing experience, as well as higher costs, so long as demand exists, costs will climb. 

U.S. football fans wanting to watch every National Football League game must currently spend between $935 and $1,500 annually for full NFL access across 10 services, for example. 

That speaks to the demand. And that means distributors will continue to drive up the underlying costs of such premium content that ultimately get passed along to consumers, at least in the short term. 

The FCC’s inquiry) is narrowly focused on fragmentation, consumer access to free over-the-air broadcasts, and whether current rights deals hinder local stations’ public-interest obligations. 

It does not grant the agency authority to cap rights fees, rewrite league contracts, or dictate how much distributors (broadcast, cable, or streaming) are willing to pay. 

The FCC cannot “fix this” because sports rights are determined in a competitive open market where leagues auction scarce live inventory to the highest bidders.

Live professional and major college sports have structural advantages that set them apart from almost any other programming:

• scarcity and live appeal that make them one of the last reliable “water-cooler” events in a fragmented media landscape

• premium demographics (affluent, hard-to-reach male viewers)

• monopoly-like supply (leagues control their own content and can sell rights collectively.

Much public policy chatter is about theater and perception, so we should not be surprised when government officials say they want to “do something” about a problem. 

But there is a “problem” sports team owners do face. 

Every time a league sells a new exclusive window to a new platform, two things happen:

• total rights revenue goes up

• the number of fans who can actually watch goes down. 

Up to this point, that tradeoff was tolerable because the revenue gains far outweighed the audience losses. But a problem remains: advertising revenues are built on audiences. 

So, eventually, subscription and rights revenue gains are possibly balanced by losses of advertising revenue as audiences fragment. 

If the assumption is that fans would follow the product wherever it went, paying whatever they had to, that theory now begins to be tested. FCC rules will not affect that new test of supply and demand. 

Rights fees are not absorbed by networks; they are recovered through the consumer’s wallet in one form or another:

• streaming and cable bundles

• broadcast networks (advertising costs are passed along to consumers in product prices)

• subscriptions or ad costs are still paid for by consumers. 

The problem perhaps is not “older viewers” for whom watching their favorite team play is not discretionary. It is the younger viewers who never developed the habit who are the problem. 

At what point might disinterest finally begin to prick the balloon of rights payments? If younger viewers are not interested in watching live sports, what happens to the business model?

Mission Creep: When a Problem is Solved, Go Do Something Else

One issue in public life is mission creep, the gradual and often unintended expansion of an entity’s goals, operations, scope or activities beyond the original core mission. It is a big issue for non-profits, but sometimes for logical reasons. 

When an issue is essentially “solved,” a non-profit can disband, as it has succeeded, or institutional vested interests can find a new problem to solve. In other cases, growth itself seems to become its own driver, as the logic seems to be, “if we are doing good things now, how much more impact could we have if we were bigger?”

The new goals may serve the interest of the employees or the management of the organization, who would otherwise be “out of their jobs.”

In cases where the organization’s original goals are already achieved or when the original goals are no longer necessary, goal displacement means organizations direct their energies elsewhere. 

For example an organization which was initially intended to fight polio would find a new disease to fight once the vaccine for polio is invented.

There are other implications for donors and citizens who are not inside an organization, though. There are lots of problems we need, or should work to fix. So spending resources on problems that are already largely “fixed” is wasteful. 

Spending “too much” on problems with less social or economic impact likewise is wasteful; as would be the case of directing excessive effort and resources on one problem, no matter how important, to the exclusion of many other equally-pressing issues. 

For example, some might argue we need to devote serious resources and effort to global warming, even if that means other things (eradicating malaria, improving general health, sanitation or water quality, building more housing, eliminating infant mortality) take a back seat. 

It might seem obvious this is not a good idea. 

We might see some relevance, in that regard, around the “problem” of quality internet access. 

There was a time when “quality” internet access (based on downstream speed) was a bigger problem in the U.S. market. That is not to say there are no issues, but useful internet access does not seem to be much of a problem for most potential users. 

And though we often focus on “supply” issues, “demand” also matters, as some customers choose not to buy fixed network internet access, while others use substitutes. And since price and speed are correlated, customers make decisions all the time about the tradeoff between price paid and typical speed received. 

Making quality internet access available is one problem. Choices consumers make is a separate issue. 

To the extent there are problems, those tend to deal with supply: is quality access available? What consumers choose to buy is not the same “problem,” indeed is simply consumer choice. 

We sometimes see data that suggests customers who buy very-low-speed services are a “problem.” Maybe, maybe not. It’s a problem if the option of buying higher speed services is unavailable. It is not a problem if a consumer makes a rational buying decision. 

Purchased plan tier (down/up)	Approx. share of U.S. broadband households	Rationale snapshot
≤25 Mbps (legacy DSL / low‑end cable)	~10–15%	FCC still tracks a small tail of low‑speed subscriptions; availability of ≥25/3 to ~98% of population suggests remaining low tiers are now a minority.itif+1​
25–99 Mbps	~20–25%	Many cable and FWA “basic” plans fall here; must be below the 53% that are ≥100/20, leaving roughly a quarter of subs in sub‑100 tiers.benton+1​
100–499 Mbps	~30–35%	Parks Associates reports that 100–999 Mbps is the most common tier; combining that with 53% at ≥100/20 implies a large cluster in low‑hundreds plans.benton+1​
500–900 Mbps	~15–20%	Higher cable/fiber tiers in competitive markets; fills the gap between the big ≥100/20 cohort and the 26% at ~940/500.benton+1​
≈940–1000 Mbps (gigabit class)	~20–30%	FCC data indicate ~26% of households subscribe at 940/500 Mbps when available, which is a reasonable center estimate for this tier’s share overall.benton​

One sees this when looking at speed tiers purchased and other variables such as household income, age, educational status or geography. One might argue that supply is a bigger problem in rural areas, but not much of a problem in urban areas. 

Many observers note that incomes tend to be lower in rural areas, which can affect demand. The cost of networks in rural areas also is higher, which affects supply. 

Segment	Indicative dominant tiers (down)	Implied avg purchased Mbps per household	Implied per‑capita purchased Mbps (household Mbps ÷ 2.5)	Key drivers
Urban	Mix skewed to 300–1000 Mbps, with high gigabit availability (82% access to gigabit‑capable).opensignal​	~400 Mbps	~160 Mbps/person	High availability of 100/20 and gigabit, higher income, more competition; urban speeds about 40–45% higher than rural on average.rcrwireless+2​
Rural	Mix skewed to 50–300 Mbps, with less gigabit (46% access), more sub‑100 Mbps and FWA.tlp+1​	~200 Mbps	~80 Mbps/person	Only 72% of rural Americans have access to 100/20; lower gigabit availability and lower observed speeds; fewer providers in many counties.tlp+2​

And household income is a major driver of buyer behavior. Wealthier households tend to buy more-capable speed tiers, just as they tend to buy more and “better” goods in general. 

Approx. income band (U.S. 2024)	Rough income deciles	Likely dominant plan tier (down)	Approx. avg purchased Mbps per household	Estimated per‑capita purchased Mbps
<$35k	Bottom 2–3 deciles	25–100 Mbps (many at 50–100 Mbps; some with no fixed broadband, relying on mobile).tlp+1​	~150 Mbps (conditional on having fixed broadband)	~60 Mbps/person
$35k–$55k	Deciles 3–4	100–300 Mbps	~250 Mbps	~100 Mbps/person
$55k–$85k	Deciles 5–6 (around median $84k)census​	200–500 Mbps	~350 Mbps	~140 Mbps/person
$85k–$130k	Deciles 7–8	300–1000 Mbps (heavy 500–1000 Mbps share)	~500 Mbps	~200 Mbps/person
>$130k	Top 1–2 deciles	500–1000+ Mbps (gigabit default where available)	~600 Mbps	~240 Mbps/person

The other notable demand issue is that a growing percentage of customers seem to buy mobile services as a product substitute for fixed network broadband. That might be especially true of lower-income households and households of younger people. 

In other niche cases, such choices might also happen for single-user households or homes in rual areas where there are fixed network supply issues. 

Customer segment	Typical characteristics and use	Likelihood that mobile‑only is satisfactory	Why mobile‑only can work reasonably well
Low‑income, light‑use households	Limited budget; 1–2 smartphones; little or no PC; usage focused on messaging, social, short video.playablemaker+1​	Medium–High	Mobile data plans and smartphones cover core communication and entertainment needs at lowest total cost.playablemaker+1​
Young adults (18–29), renters	High smartphone dependence; heavy social and app use; often stream video primarily on phones; more mobile than fixed in living situations.playablemaker+2​	High for individuals, Medium for shared households	5G speeds and phone‑centric lifestyles make mobile‑only viable for day‑to‑day use, especially when not sharing with many others.datareportal+1​
Students in K‑12 or college	Need stable connectivity for assignments, research, video classes, uploads.weforum​	Low–Medium	In limited cases, a robust unlimited plan plus hotspot can bridge a temporary gap.datareportal+1​
Remote‑work professionals	Need sustained bandwidth for video calls, large file transfers, VPN, and multi‑device use.weforum​	Low	5G can sometimes support remote work on the move, and as a backup, mobile‑only can be a useful failover.datareportal+1​
Rural households with limited fixed options	May have only expensive satellite or slow DSL; good 4G/5G may be the best available option.weforum+1​	Medium	Mobile broadband can outperform legacy DSL or expensive satellite, especially where modern macro sites or fixed‑wireless offerings exist.datareportal+1​
High‑income, tech‑heavy households	Multiple devices, 4K streaming, gaming, smart‑home gear; often already subscribe to high‑speed fixed broadband.weforum​	Very Low	Mobile is excellent as a secondary/backup or for travel; speeds can rival entry‑level fixed plans.datareportal+1​

The broader point is that internet access, generally speaking, is a problem that is mostly “solved” for most potential users and buyers, though some issues remain. 

As with always, the amount of effort or priority we “should” be devoting to such issues should be proportional to “where” and “why” the problems may continue to exist, tailoring solutions in ways that solve the problems in an efficient way. 

Once supply issues are overcome, we might not want to exert prior levels of effort to take on new missions such as “encouraging” use of the internet, which might not be a substantial problem, or one that really needs much subsidy and effort.