A Scorching Spring for Sporting Events, Streaming Apps, and Digital Ad Spend

Viewers Are Showing Up

The first ever live sporting event that streamed over the internet was the Ohio State Spring college game on April 14th, 2001, using RealVideo and RealPlayer technology. My, how far we’ve come.

While it’s only the beginning of summer, live sporting events have been piping hot across Peacock, Fox One, Paramount+, Apple TV, and Netflix as streamers have jumped full force into the thrill of competitive sports - and viewers are following.

The beneficiary of the largest sporting event of the year, Peacock’s highest daily active user spike YTD was, unsurprisingly, the Super Bowl on Feb. 8th. The second highest DAUs? The World Cup. With the opening games on June 11th, Peacock, which airs the games in Spanish, saw a 53.8% jump in average DAUs between May and June, similarly aided by its coverage of the US Open Golf Championship on June 18th. Fox One, which airs the World Cup games in English, saw similar gains with DAUs jumping over 1,900% between June 7th and June 14th.

Paramount+ claimed its highest DAU spike YTD on June 15th with the UFC Freedom 250 match, which saw a massive increase in both WoW downloads (+427%) and DAUs (+196%) while Apple TV took its live sports to the grid, acquiring the rights to the 2026 F1 season. Though the streamer maintains the smallest amount of subscribers of the group, its highest DAU spike YTD was the beginning of the F1 season on March 7th, and has maintained noticeable increases each race weekend. 

Separating Netflix for its sheer number of subscribers compared to the rest of the group, the streamer aired the live fight between Rhonda Rousey and Gina Carano on May 16th that didn’t garner a significant increase in DAUs. And if you blinked, you may have missed the seventeen-second submission. In fact, Netflix’s largest DAU spike YTD can be attributed to a live event - if you consider the live BTS concert on March 21st a sport? While it undoubtedly raised the heartrates of the teenage viewers, we don’t think it qualifies. 

Streamers Up Ad Spend

If you’re going to spend millions or even billions to bring live sports to your platform, you may want to promote them. Between Feb. 1st and June 29th, 2026 Apple TV’s total US spend share for ads relating to F1 was 2.8%, the majority of that in February, just before the season’s opening race. Between March and June, 2026, Peacock similarly devoted 2.2% of their budget to MLB, 5.1% to NBA ads, and 5.4% of total spend share to World Cup advertising.

While Peacock and Apple did proportionally increase their spend before their live sporting events, Paramount+ and Fox Sports took their marketing a step further. Paramount allocated 20.6% of all ad spend, between March 1st and June 29th to the UFC 250 match, while Fox dedicated a massive 48% of total ad spend to World Cup-related ads. 

For Advertisers - Audience is Key

As live sporting events continue to draw the largest viewership across streamers, they’re prime opportunities for advertisers looking to get in front of as many eyeballs as possible, and knowing which audiences are watching is material for strategy.

Sensor Tower’s Audience Insights shows that users of Peacock and Paramount+, YTD 2026, have similar persona profiles, with users of Peacock being 488% more likely than the general population to fit into the Sports Fans persona (those who open sports apps frequently) and 239% more likely to be part of the Gamblers persona. 

Interestingly, while those personas are male-dominated, the majority of Peacock’s users were actually 54.2% female. On the opposite side of the spectrum, Apple TV and Fox Sports’ top personas include Sports Fans and Gamblers, yet skew heavily towards male audiences with Apple hitting 64.1% and Fox at 83.9% male. Once again, Netflix breaks from the category with the majority of its users sitting in the Sneakerhead and Moviegoers personas, with 56.8% of their audience leaning female, and users in the Gambling persona sitting outside the top 25 for the streamer - further evidence that Netflix has ground to make up in drawing in more sports-minded viewers. 

Overtime: Key Takeaways

As the appetite for live sports grows, streaming services will continue to license more events from leagues, as well as full seasons, to feed the hunger. In fact, Netflix’s stance has completely shifted, previously expressing no interest in streaming live sports. But the benefits are undeniable, with live sports becoming the most watched shows, garnering significant app download attribution, and increased ad revenue from brands seizing the opportunity to get in front of highly viewed games. And with the summer Olympics right around the corner, that fire will only spread.

Want more insights into streaming apps, audience, and what brands are increasing their spend during sports seasons and live events? Click below for a demo.