Sports streaming reach grows 22% as WNBA viewership surges 56%

Live sports has evolved from a retention tool into a primary acquisition engine, with 30% of streamers now subscribing specifically for game access. This shift forces platforms to prioritize high-reach leagues like the NFL to anchor general plans while using high-growth properties like the WNBA to capture specific high-engagement demographics. For media planners, the massive 36-percentage-point gap in NBA streaming between Black and White audiences underscores that general-market reach assumptions are increasingly insufficient. Watch for whether the Premier League and Formula 1, newly added to the measurement set at 12% reach, see a similar growth trajectory as Amazon and others expand international rights portfolios.

The surge in streaming sports adoption aligns with massive shifts in distribution rights and catalog composition. Per Gracenote, May 2026, sports programming now accounts for 5% of all content across major global subscription services, nearly tripling its 1.4% share from late 2024. This growth is anchored by long-term commitments such as the 11-year, multi-billion dollar agreements signed by Amazon Prime Video with the NBA and WNBA in July 2024. These deals effectively shifted 30 regular-season WNBA games per year to a global streaming-first platform, creating the infrastructure for the viewership gains documented by the VAB. Prime Video’s June 2026 schedule further prioritized this by making the WNBA Commissioner’s Cup its flagship live sports offering.

Secondary measurement providers confirm these trends across multiple methodologies. Nielsen’s Spring 2026 reporting found NBA viewership up 27% and NHL up 25% for the most recent seasons, while its March 2026 report on women’s sports noted the WNBA averaged 1.3 million viewers on ESPN national broadcasts. The alignment between VAB’s survey-based data and Nielsen’s panel-based viewing hours indicates that the transition to streaming is not merely a shift in device usage but a measurable expansion of total audience reach. Additionally, VAB's April 2026 data shows that ad-supported streaming now reaches 209.4 million U.S. viewers, providing a massive built-in audience for the ad-supported tiers of services currently vying for expensive live sports rights.