Sports helps boost streamer sign-ups, but subscribers don’t always stick around: Report

Sports programming’s availability on subscription streaming platforms is leading to new sign-ups, but that doesn’t always translate to retention, according to new data shared in Antenna’s State of Subscriptions: Sports & Streaming report.

During the NFL’s 2023 and 2024 seasons, Paramount+ saw an average of 117,000 daily sign-ups, a 41% higher average sign-up rate compared to the NFL offseason in those years, according to the report. Peacock, meanwhile, averaged 76,000 daily sign-ups during those seasons, up nearly 25% compared to the offseason periods, Antenna found.

Meanwhile, consumers who cancelled Peacock following the streamer’s WWE Premium Live Events were 40x more likely to watch WWE Raw on Netflix, according to the report.

Antenna, which aggregates information from data collection partners that provide consumer opt-in transaction records like digital purchase and cancellation receipts, tracked continued growth in league-level sports services, virtual MVPDs, and regional sports networks as sports continues to expand its foothold in the digital world. Marketing Brew has rounded up some of the other highlights from the report below.

New kids on the block: The continued interest in live sports on streaming was demonstrated through the new sports streamer ESPN Unlimited, which picked up 1.7 million sign-ups through October since its August debut, per Antenna. Two-thirds of those sign-ups were for bundles, like the ESPN Unlimited/Disney+/Hulu offering, Antenna found. Fox One, a similar paid streamer that includes access to live sports and also hit the market in August drew 2.3 million sign-ups through October, 60% of which came from Amazon Channels, according to the report.

In all, Antenna estimates that ESPN Unlimited and FOX One had a combined 4 million sign-ups by the end of October.

The ABCDs of vMVPDs: Not all streamers fared as well as ESPN Unlimited and Fox One did. Virtual MVPDs offering live TV over-the-top, including Hulu + Live TV and Fubo, saw a 12% decrease in overall user sign-ups YoYr in Q3, Antenna found. With that said, these kinds of services still managed to attract 4.7 million sign-ups, which was boosted by a peak in sign-ups at the start of football season. In September, average vMVPD churn was 5.1%, down 0.4 points YoY. YouTube TV led the pack among vMVPDs in terms of market share, catching 44% of vMVPD sign-ups in Q3, according to the report.

Home runs: SVODs, meanwhile, continued to see growth due to various sports properties, according to the report. Apple TV saw a major boost from Major League Baseball: six out of the top 10 titles on the streamer (measured by signed-up accounts reached) between April and September were MLB games, Antenna found. However, sign-ups that viewed MLB games on the streamer displayed “similar or lower retention compared to the average Apple TV sign-up.”

Similarly, Antenna attributed 238,000 Netflix sign-ups in the month of September to the livestreamed Canelo vs. Crawford boxing match on the platform that month. That spike paled in comparison to at least one other live boxing event on Netflix: Last year’s Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson match drew about 800,000 sign-ups for the streamer, per Antenna.

Through the uprights: Football was perhaps unsurprisingly a driver for sign-ups across streaming: NFL+ and NFL Sunday Ticket peaked to 3 million and 2.1 million subscriptions in September, according to the report, a 37% increase in Q3 2025 from Q3 2024 for NFL Sunday Ticket and a 22% increase in Q3 2025 from Q3 2024 for NFL+.

Across all league sports services, including non-football services like MLS Season Pass and UFC Fight Pass, NFL+ and NFL Sunday Ticket market share of total Q3 sign-ups was 82%, according to the report. Sign-ups across league streaming services grew 18% YoY in Q3 2025, reaching 4.5 million total sign-ups. Regional sports network sign-ups also grew 34% YoY in Q3.