• Netflix's Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson fight and NFL games drove surges in daily signups, data shows.
• These 2024 events were among Netflix's early entries into live sports.
• The new subscription data shows the live sports strategy is paying off for the streaming giant.

Live sports are paying off for Netflix, new subscription data shows.

The company had big spikes in daily signups during major live events last year, according to media-subscription research firm Antenna. These included the Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson fight and NFL games on Christmas Day.

Netflix brought in 1.4 million US signups for the boxing match, while the Christmas games drove 700 million, per a report Antenna published Tuesday.

Alongside live sports, Antenna said Netflix's password-sharing restrictions, which rolled out in the US in 2023, have helped boost signups by limiting the number of people who can use one account.

"It was a good start for Netflix into its foray of live acquisition sports," said Jonathan Carson, Antenna's CEO, in a webinar about the report.

Netflix is pursuing more live sports and events. The streamer kicked off a deal with the WWE this year and landed exclusive US rights to the FIFA Women's World Cup for 2027 and 2031. The company wants more NFL rights, too, content chief Bela Bajaria told the podcast "The Town with Matt Beloni."

Netflix highlighted sports in January as it announced a record 19 million new subscribers. The company called the Paul-Tyson fight the most-streamed sporting event ever and the NFL Christmas Day games the two most streamed NFL games in history.

Carson at Antenna said Netflix's subscriber leap shows an industry giant that has been around for as long as Netflix can still drive better business results with new tools and strategies.

"When Netflix announced that they were getting into these live events, these big moments in time, there was a question as to whether these could drive big surges of acquisition," Carson said. "The results have been pretty impressive."

Users who signed up for live sports weren't as loyal as other Netflix subscribers

Driving signups is half only the battle. Netflix also needs to keep these new customers around.

Antenna found that 79% of the US subscribers who signed up for the Paul vs. Tyson fight stuck around one month later. That's lower than Netflix's overall benchmark of user loyalty, which is 86%, per Antenna.

However, it was still higher than the benchmark for loyalty at other premium subscription streaming services that Antenna tracks. 21% of users who signed up to watch the fight canceled their subscriptions within a month of subscribing. Its competitor set, which includes streamers such as Paramount+ or Hulu, saw 26% of users cancel in a similar timeframe.

Antenna's data also showed other positives for Netflix:

• Netflix was one of five streaming subscriptions that grew gross additions by double digits year over year in 2024. It also captured 15% of gross additions in the category, in line with Hulu and behind Paramount+'s 17%.
• Netflix had the highest retention rate for a standalone service, with 74% of users who subscribed from July to September sticking with the service after three months. Its retention rate was second only to Disney and Warner Bros Discovery's bundle, which had an 80% retention rate during the period.

• New and emerging leagues are attracting the most VC funding in sports, data shows.
• VC deals tracked by PitchBook show a rebound in funding to US sports startups in 2024.
• Some categories, like media and gambling, raised less money last year than in recent years.

New leagues, women's teams, and youth and amateur sports are reinvigorating the sports startup landscape.

Venture capital funding for US sports startups rebounded last year, with an estimated 119 deals worth a total of $880 million, according to PitchBook data. That value was up 54% from the year before but below the levels from 2021 and 2022 when roughly $1.4 billion poured into the sector each year.

While private equity continues to flow into sports — PitchBook tracked an estimated $9.89 billion worth of deals in 2024, a new high-water mark — the startup space has been choppier. Investors have been looking for surer bets amid the economic uncertainty that's driven high interest rates and fewer exit opportunities for startups.

Venture capital typically goes to startups, while PE firms tend to invest in growth-stage businesses that may be more mature. In sports, PE has gravitated toward major teams and leagues, for example. VCs have backed more sports technology, including betting and fantasy companies, and nascent or emerging leagues.

Early-stage companies with experienced founders and proven traction have attracted big VC investments in the last year. League One Volleyball, which runs a professional women's league and youth programs, announced in November a $100 million funding round from both PE and VC investors. Soccer company TOCA Football said in October that it raised a $100 million Series F round from private investors.

"In the world of sports, adept management teams building technological infrastructure and engaging, experience-driven platforms that play into these tailwinds are capturing investor interest," said Lloyd Danzig at Sharp Alpha Advisors, which invests in sports, gambling, and entertainment.

The hottest startups are new sports leagues and women's sports

New leagues and women's sports grabbed the most VC funding in 2024, according to PitchBook.

In addition to League One Volleyball, two National Women's Soccer League teams and the three-on-three basketball league Unrivaled were among the 10 sports startups that raised the most money last year, per PitchBook. These teams and leagues feature some of the biggest names in women's sports, such as Breanna Stewart, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, and Rose Lavelle.

Emerging sports, such as cricket and track-and-field, also attracted new investment.

"Emerging leagues, women's sports, those are the hot areas," said Chris Russo, CEO of Fifth Generation Sports. "People view those as big growth opportunities."

Investors think there is a big opportunity to capture existing fans of these sports in new ways. Some of those could include having shorter events or new methods of engagement.

"Everyone is trying to get to those fans that love the sport," said Mohit Pareek, a principal at Drake Star Partners. "These new leagues are trying to cater to the changing fan behavior."

Russo and Pareek pointed to AI as another key area of innovation for sports, though AI didn't appear to be a key focus among the sports companies PitchBook tracked that had raised the most money last year.

The challenges sports startups face

While some verticals in the landscape are booming, others have taken a hit, including media, content creation, and, to a lesser extent, sports betting.

"Dealmaking has been challenging for a while now," said Chris Lynch, managing director at Citizens, about the sports betting landscape. "Investors have become much more discerning."

Lynch also mentioned that sports-betting deals are taking longer than they did in the past, and investors face more roadblocks.

Danzig at Sharp Alpha Advisors told BI that he's seeing more founders bootstrap their way for longer before seeking external funding.

It's more difficult for founders with an idea and dream to get those first checks.

"Companies with clear traction and growth potential continue to attract investment in a flight to quality, while those lacking indications of success are finding it increasingly difficult to secure financing," Danzig said.

Here are 10 US sports startups that raised significant VC funding in 2024, according to PitchBook:

• Angel City FC: The Los Angeles-based NWSL team announced in July an additional $50 million investment from Disney CEO Bob Iger and Willow Bay, which valued the company at $250 million. PitchBook estimates the team raised a total of $123 million across several Series B rounds last year that included various investors.
• League One Volleyball: The new women's professional volleyball league raised $100 million last year. LOVB also has a youth program.
• TOCA Football: The tech-focused soccer training program announced a $100 million Series F round in September. It has facilities around the US.
• Grand Slam Track: PitchBook estimates the track-and-field startup raised about $39 million in seed funding as of September 2024. The startup said in June that it had secured more than $30 million in financial commitments to launch a new league that plans to bring some of the world's biggest track stars to competitions.
• Major League Cricket: The league aims to bring cricket to American audiences. It has attracted investment from executives like Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and firms like Iconic Ventures and Madrona Venture Group, CNBC reported in July. PitchBook estimates the league raised $39 million in July.
• On3: PitchBook estimates On3 raised an estimated $36.25 million as of November. The digital platform focuses on high school and college sports, NIL, and recruiting news.
• NJ/NY Gotham FC: The NSWL franchise raised an estimated $34 million in June, per PitchBook. The team won the championship in 2023, and its roster includes US Women's National Team players Emily Sonnett and Rose Lavelle.
• Sofive Soccer Centers: The indoor soccer facility owned by City Football Group raised an estimated $30 million in April, per PitchBook.
• Unrivaled Basketball: The new 3x3 women's basketball league raised $28 million in October. It was founded by WNBA players Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart. The league brings in players from the WNBA to compete in the fast-paced game.
• Gameplay Galaxy: The Web3 esports company announced in August that it raised a total of $24 million in seed funding, including a $11 million extension round, VentureBeat reported. Gameplay Galaxy has said it's developing a "decentralized competitive gaming ecosystem."

Angel City FC and LOVB directed BI to recent funding announcements. Unrivaled and TOCA confirmed the funding amounts for their 2024 raises. Sofive and Gotham FC declined to comment. The other companies on this list did not reply or confirm by press time.

• ESPN and MLB are opting out of their TV deal early. The partnership will end with the 2025 season.
• ESPN's sports rights are of particular interest ahead of the fall launch of its flagship streamer.
• Analysts say the sports broadcaster is in a "position of strength" when it comes to negotiations.

ESPN and Major League Baseball are ending their TV deal. ESPN isn't sweating the divorce.

The companies announced on Thursday that they opted out of their contract early. The decision to end the deal with the 2025 season came after ESPN felt it was paying more for the rights to its Sunday slot than streamers Apple and Roku were for their games, a source close to ESPN told Business Insider.

Like other sports broadcasters and streamers, Disney's ESPN has been snapping up sports rights, from renewing its deal with the NBA last year to re-upping its college sports contract with the ACC. As it nears the fall launch of its flagship streamer, its decisions are publicly under the microscope. The company appears to be picking and choosing its battles carefully.

"Sports rights have gone up so much, at some point, there has to be some financial discipline," Jessica Reif Ehrlich, managing director at Bank of America Securities, told BI.

MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred wrote in a letter first published by The Athletic that he didn't think the league should reduce its fees for ESPN, which has exclusive games, unlike Apple and Roku's packages. He also wrote that the league was displeased with the lack of coverage ESPN provided outside game-time broadcasts. The MLB declined to comment on this story.

As the two prepare to part ways, some analysts told BI that the Disney property won't miss out on too much. ESPN has the rights to many sports and events outside baseball. In the next few months alone, the NBA and NHL playoffs, the Masters tournament in golf, and many college sports are coming.

"ESPN, generally, is in a position of strength," Reif Ehrlich said. She pointed to ESPN's distribution footprint, which includes traditional pay TV, sports-focused streaming bundles, and its own streaming services. "ESPN is a highly desirable platform for any sport."

ESPN is making power plays ahead of its streaming launch

MLB isn't the only league ESPN is playing hardball with.

The company recently walked away from its exclusive negotiation window with Formula 1 without a contract, Puck News reported. It is also in negotiations with the UFC, though no deal has yet been announced.

The source close to ESPN told BI that baseball has a long season, and its ratings haven't been as strong as some other sports.

Last year, the MLB said ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball program had an average viewership of about 1.5 million, the most the MLB had on the platform in over five years.

Under the MLB deal, ESPN could show baseball games on Sunday and some other events, as well as mostly regular season highlights on SportsCenter. It didn't have the rights to the World Series. With the restrictions on what ESPN could cover, the move to split was not shocking, said Rief Ehrlich.

As Disney works to launch ESPN's flagship, it is arguably more important that it picks and chooses the content it wants and becomes more selective, the analysts said.

ESPN is saving $600 million in programming expenses by cutting the MLB, according to a MoffettNathanson report published on February 21.

Of course, walking away from MLB could undermine ESPN's long-term ambition of being the streaming home for sports in the US.

"Considering the totality of Disney and ESPN's streaming ambitions, we believe an opt-out would likely be a mistake," Lightshed Partners wrote in a report earlier in February.

Still, the decision likely came down to whether Disney thought the MLB rights could meaningfully draw subscribers for its streaming services.

"Disney didn't value [the MLB] as a prime mover of acquisition," Joe Bonner, an analyst at Argus Research, told BI.

• PE firm Atwater Capital made its first investment into women's sports with League One Volleyball.
• The LA-based firm thinks media rights for women's sports are massively undervalued.
• Founder Vania Schlogel shared how Atwater plans to use its media and entertainment ties to grow LOVB.

Private-equity firm Atwater Capital thinks women's sports are massively undervalued.

The Los Angeles-based firm made its first investment in sports last year through League One Volleyball, or LOVB, for short. The company's professional women's league started play in January. Atwater, which invests in media and entertainment businesses, contributed to a $100 million investment in LOVB.

While the valuations of some professional women's sports teams have risen in recent years, Atwater founder Vania Schlogel said the value of media rights still hasn't caught up with demand.

Atwater founder Vania Schlogel pointed to women's sports that have set attendance records in recent years. A 2023 college volleyball game brought in a crowd of over 90,000, filling an area that typically houses football. The National Women's Soccer League's Angel City had an average attendance of over 19,000 fans in 2024, in line with the 20,000 that top NBA teams averaged last year.

"You're telling me that women's sports rights are not undervalued? I just don't believe it," Schlogel told Business Insider.

With LOVB, Schlogel said the firm sees an opportunity to make the league more valuable by expanding merchandise sales, marketing, and content production.

Why Atwater is betting on LOVB

Atwater has about $450 million in assets under management and mainly focuses on the digital media and entertainment industries. It's invested in companies like Brad Pitt's production company Plan B and 88Rising, a media collective focused on Asian talent.

The PE firm was drawn to LOVB because, like Atwater's other ventures, the league serves a fandom.

Schlogel said women's sports fans are rabid and looking for an outlet. Organizations like the WNBA and the NWSL have cultivated fans of basketball and soccer, but sports like lacrosse or volleyball are only beginning to form professional leagues. The Professional Lacrosse League recently launched a women's league, for example. Other leagues have been announced to start soon in sports like softball and baseball.

Atwater said LOVB's community-centered approach sets it apart from some other leagues and could help grow its fan base. LOVB has a network of junior clubs to encourage young girls to continue playing volleyball from youth to the professional level.

"That's really good for the longevity of the entire ecosystem," LOVB's cofounder and CEO, Katlyn Gao, told BI.

Volleyball is one of the popular high-school sports for girls. In 2023, girls' high-school volleyball had 470,000 participants, the second-most behind track and field, according to a survey by the National Federation of State High School Associations.

Awareness and cultural relevance are key to LOVB's success

Atwater is offering LOVB access to its media and entertainment expertise, in addition to giving the league money. The firm said it could offer advice on rights deals (LOVB currently has a US distribution deal with ESPN) and how to drive merchandising sales.

"One good that private equity can do is to bring replicable business processes and learnings from past investments to current investments," said Schlogel.

Gao said Atwater has already helped LOVB make connections in the entertainment space.

"One of the key drivers of our success, especially at the pro level, is awareness and cultural relevance," Gao said. "And for that to emerge we're talking to a lot of people that they know in their ecosystem."

• Tubi's Super Bowl stream reached 13.6 million viewers, helping push the game's audience to a new high.
• The free streaming service has been growing consistently since its purchase by Fox in 2020.
• The service is particularly popular with young and multicultural viewers.

The Eagles won the Super Bowl, but it was Fox-owned streamer Tubi's big night.

Tubi's simulcast of the game reached an average minute audience of 13.6 million, broadcaster Fox announced. The free streaming service helped drive Super Bowl LIX to a record 127.7 million average viewers across platforms, per Fox.

Last year's big game reached 123.7 million viewers, making it the most-watched Super Bowl at the time, according to Nielsen data.

Tubi aired the Super Bowl for the first time this year as owner Fox broadcast the game. The streaming service helped make the Chiefs-Eagles matchup more accessible to audiences without traditional TV packages or who may have watched on phones or other devices.

The broadcast on Fox and Tubi generated over $800 million in gross revenue from advertising across platforms, Fox said.

Ahead of the game, Tubi's marketing chief Nicole Parlapiano told Business Insider that the service wanted to show viewers and advertisers that it had reached its "credibility era" as a destination for high-quality entertainment.

The company said that it had reached 97 million monthly active users in 2024.

Tubi has set itself apart with its vast library of licensed TV shows and movies, as well as original programming. Streaming the Super Bowl was a way for it to introduce its platform to more viewers, who had to sign up for a free account to watch the game.

The service featured shoulder content, such as a fashion-focused pre-game show, for people who were more interested in the cultural aspects of the Super Bowl than the game itself.

Tubi has grown its viewership since it was purchased by Fox in 2020. In December, it accounted for 1.7% of US TV viewing, more than fellow free streamer Pluto TV and popular subscription services including Peacock and Max, according to Nielsen data.

Tubi is particularly popular among young and diverse audiences.

In 2023, the company said 36% of Tubi watchers were between the ages of 18 and 34. In December, 45% of Tubi's viewing came from Black audiences, BI previously reported based on Nielsen data.

Two years ago, Tubi's ad during the Super Bowl conjured up some chaos. It made viewers think they had sat on their remote and changed the app they were using.

The company leaned into the eccentric marketing approach again this year, which helped it build social media buzz. Its Super Bowl ad featured a boy with a head shaped like a cowboy hat who loves watching Westerns.

"We took a lot of risks back then, and it kind of set the pace for how we approached the business in the past two and a half years," Parlapiano previously told BI.

February 12, 2025: This story has been updated to reflect new details on Super Bowl advertising revenue.

• Nike's Super Bowl commercial has become one of the most talked about online.
• The ad featured women athletes, including Sha'Carri Richardson, Caitlin Clark, and A'ja Wilson.
• Ads from Dunkin' and Jeep also performed well in the data.

Nike has emerged as a big winner in the Super Bowl advertising game.

The brand's surprise Super Bowl return drove the most social media engagement among the advertisers in Sunday's game, according to social and consumer intelligence company Meltwater. Nike generated 188,000 engagement actions, a key advertiser metric that includes social media likes or comments. That was 40,000 more than the next-most engaging advertiser, Jeep.

Nike also had the second-highest online reach among advertisers in this year's game, behind Dunkin', according to Meltwater.

Nike's star-studded commercial, featuring women athletes like Sha'Carri Richardson, Caitlin Clark, and A'ja Wilson, marked the company's first Super Bowl commercial in 27 years.

The company did not unveil its commercial ahead of time. The unexpected debut likely contributed to the online buzz, Anna Amarotti, a consumer insights and marketing intelligence lead for Meltwater, told Business Insider.

Ads from Dunkin' and Jeep also made a splash

Dunkin's "DunKings" ad also created a lot of buzz by reach, another key metric, according to Meltwater. The ad had the most impressions among this year's Super Bowl advertisers, with 38.4 million, ahead of Nike's 23.9 million impressions. Dunkin's ad ranked fifth by social media engagement.

Dunkin' leaned into its Boston roots for the Super Bowl commercial, featuring actors Ben Affleck and Casey Affleck and former Patriots head coach Bill Belichick, among others. Amarotti said its reach was partly "the effect of a famous person on a brand," describing how big celebrities can garner lots of attention on social media.

Meltwater also tracked public sentiment around this year's Super Bowl ads. Jeep's commercial with Harrison Ford was the most positively viewed ad. Pfizer's commercial, which touted its cancer research, generated the most negative sentiment.

"The brands with the best performance wisely chose to recognize the societal moment in time, leaning into humor, comfort, and relatability, rather than aspiration and future-gazing," said Alexandra Saab Bjertnæs, Meltwater's chief strategy officer, in an email to BI.

Other brand winners from the game include streamer Tubi, which had the most social media mentions in posts that referenced the Super Bowl, according to data from social media analytics company Sprout Social. Tubi, which is owned by Fox, streamed the Super Bowl for free.

Meanwhile, according to EDO, which measures the impact of TV ads, T-Mobile sparked the most consumer engagement online. EDO tracks behavior like whether someone searches for a brand. By this measure, T-Mobile's ad had over 12 times the engagement of middle-performing ads in the game. Ads from Ram and Liquid Death also scored well.

• Jalen Hurts was named Super Bowl MVP after a dominant championship performance.
• Hurts is partnered with the Jordan Brand, Beats by Dre, and has his own clothing line.
• Hurts' all-female management team has worked behind the scenes to help the QB succeed off the field.

Jalen Hurts can officially add Super Bowl MVP to his list of accomplishments.

After coming up short two years ago against the Chiefs, Hurts and the Eagles soared past Kansas City on Sunday night, 40-22.

"I couldn't be here without my teammates," Hurts said after the victory. "You know, the effort, the determination, everybody displayed to get to this point."

Hurts' hard work on the field has helped his business ventures off the field.

Hurts signed a deal with Nike's Jordan Brand in August 2023, making him the third quarterback to sign with the footwear company after the Dallas Cowboys' Dak Prescott and Carolina Panthers' Bryce Young.

Hurts had people paying attention to his cleat choices for Super Bowl LIX, as players can only wear black, white, or official team color cleats. Hurts wore red and black cleats with the word "unbannable" printed on the back.

"Unbannable" referred to Michael Jordan's black and red Air Jordan shoes, which were banned by the NBA in 1985 and resulted in a fine for the NBA legend. Hurts faced a similar fine earlier in the season for wearing two cleats with different shades of green. As the company did with Jordan, Nike ate the fine on Hurts' behalf for the infraction to the uniform policy.

Hurts is also sponsored by Beats by Dre and Lemon Perfect. The 26-year-old also has an eponymous clothing brand. He sells T-shirts, crewneck sweaters, hoodies, and a bespoke leather duffel bag, with proceeds going to the Jalen Hurts Foundation, which benefits youth by promoting local opportunities in Philadelphia, according to its website.

The team behind Hurts' commercial success

Hurts has assembled a team to help him find opportunities on and off the field. In a press conference ahead of the Super Bowl, he said his all-woman management team "happened organically."

"Really just seeking out the best, and that's how it happened," Hurts said. "I have a lot of confidence in my team and everyone that supports me. Everyone puts their best foot forward, they do a great job of being intentional. And honestly, for me, it's an eye that I don't have. I'm able to lean on them in certain situations, and so that's something I value heavily."

His agent, Nicole Lynn, in 2023 became the first Black woman to manage a player in the Super Bowl. She was also the first Black woman to manage an NFL draft pick.

"I know the agent world in the NFL, and all sports, is very male-dominated," Hurts told Sports Illustrated in 2022. "But Nicole was really on top of her stuff. She was prepared. She knew what she was talking about. She was hungry. And she was determined. And I feel that determination like that never rests. Once you come across such a determined individual, that just hits me a little different."

Business Insider has reached out to Jalen Hurts and his management team for comment about the Super Bowl win and the companies he works with.

• Molson Coors CMO Sofia Colucci lays out the strategy behind the company's Super Bowl ad.
• The "Case of the Mondays" campaign kicked off weeks ahead of the game with a viral stunt.
• It follows a framework the company developed to assess its creative: "MUSCLE."

Coors Light laid the groundwork for its "Case of the Mondays" Super Bowl campaign for weeks — from a viral stunt to chilled face rollers.

The stakes are high for Super Bowl advertisers, some of whom this year are paying over $8 million for 30 seconds of airtime. Coors Light owner Molson Coors hoped to break through by tapping into a simple universal feeling: what it's like to return to work on Monday after a football-packed Sunday.

The campaign started with a typo. The beer brand misspelled "refreshment" in January ads in The New York Times and in Times Square, saying soon after that it had a "case of the Mondays," in a nod to the classic "Office Space" line. The campaign, which builds up a TV ad in the game, also includes a branded face roller and Peloton partnership.

Molson Coors CMO Sofia Colucci outlined the company's Super Bowl creative and marketing approach using an acronym: MUSCLE. It stands for "magnetic," "unexpected," "simple," "crafted brilliantly," "long term," and tied to the "essence of the brand."

Colucci said the company has been using this framework over the last year to evaluate the creative effectiveness of its work. There's no bigger showcase for it than the big game.

"The Super Bowl isn't a day, it's a season," Colucci told Business Insider. "We've gone all in on this big idea of having a 'case of the Mondays,' and we wanted to tell one cohesive story to finish, rooted in this insight."

Coors Light is hoping to flex its 'MUSCLE' to connect with consumers

The Super Bowl is typically inundated with beer ads. Molson Coors put its Coors Light brand front and center this year. The game also featured ads from Anheuser-Busch InBev's Budweiser, Bud Light, Michelob Ultra, and Stella Artois.

In the stacked lineup, Molson Coors hoped to stand out by flexing "MUSCLE" to connect with consumers.

The first part — "magnetic" — is all about capturing emotions, Colucci said. Is the advertisement going to make people feel something? Will they laugh or cry? The company leaned into humor with the Super Bowl campaign. Its TV ad featured a slow-moving sloth to capture how people may feel come Monday. Its teaser for the ad featured actor and comedian Timothy Simons from "Veep" and "Nobody Wants This."

"Unexpected" for Molson Coors means the ad is distinctive enough that your friends or family might text you about it. That's where the typo came in, spelling "refreshment" as "refershment."

"I've never seen anything like this," Colucci said. "Friends, family, critics on LinkedIn, everyone was reaching out. Some were embarrassed for us. Some actually were thinking I was going to lose my job."

"Simple" ensures the ad is easy to understand (so simple "you could tell your Uber driver about it," Colucci said).

The next three letters, C, L, and E, look at the campaign overall. It should be "crafted brilliantly," meaning that every individual piece is executed well. For the Super Bowl, for example, the campaign culminates in a partnership with Peloton that ties back to a scene in the TV ad with the sloth cycling. The Peloton partnership includes a five-minute meditation and 30-minute ride on Monday.

Long-term connection ties the campaign back to the brand's main messaging, which, for Coors Light, is "chill." The company released a Coors Light "Chill Face Roller," among other ties-ins, aiming to tap into the facial-ice-roller beauty trend. The company told BI the chill rollers sold out in seven minutes on day one and five minutes on day two, and are now selling on eBay.

"'Chill' is our long-term platform," Colucci said. "And if you think about having a case of the Mondays and being chill about it, it felt so right for Coors Light."

Lastly, the creative aims to capture the "essence of the brand." When people think of Coors, does the advertisement connect to what they associate with the company?

• The Super Bowl has embraced creators as the NFL looks to expand the audience for the game.
• The league is bringing a host of creators to New Orleans and partnering with platforms like YouTube.
• Brands are also looking for new ways to include creators in their Super Bowl marketing.

Influencers are everywhere at the Super Bowl this week as brands consider the game a key fixture of culture and entertainment.

The NFL plans to host over 150 creators in New Orleans for the big game, from local names to international figures, Ad Age reported. YouTubers Kai Cenat and Darren Jason Watkins Jr., known online as IShowSpeed, are set to lead a flag football game with creators like Carter Kench and Matthew "MMG" Meagher and other big names on the Saturday before the main event, YouTube announced.

The Super Bowl embraced content creators in a big way last year as part of a growing partnership between the NFL and YouTube. It came as YouTube started streaming the NFL's Sunday Ticket package in 2023.

This year, influencers in sports, fashion, gaming, and other niches are getting involved again to connect with Gen Z and other young audiences. The NFL is expanding its partnerships with social platforms, including working with Snapchat. And brands are looking for new ways to include creators in their Super Bowl marketing.

"By working with influencers and creators, you're meeting the audience where it is," said Alex Sheinman, cofounder and talent manager at the Snapback Agency, which works with content creators and athletes. "If I'm on Instagram or TikTok, the NFL is now coming to where I am … That's why it's so powerful."

How the NFL is working with platforms like YouTube and Snapchat

Snapchat struck a new partnership with the NFL this year that will bring some of its creators to the Super Bowl. Snapchatters such as Katie Austin, Ross Smith, Jack Mancuso, and Treasure Wilson are set to get access behind the scenes and to special augmented-reality lenses created with the NFL, Snapchat said.

The platform prioritized creators in areas other than football, such as fitness, food, lifestyle, fashion, and entertainment. The NFL was looking to include creators who aren't exposed to the league so it "can kind of drive new fandom," Anmol Malhotra, head of sport and media partnerships for Snapchat's parent company, told BI.

"Our goal was to capture the casual fan," Malhotra said. "The person who may not know who Patrick Mahomes is, that Travis Kelce is dating Taylor Swift, or who Jalen Hurts is, but can relate to a tailgate."

YouTube is also expanding its partnership with the NFL. In addition to the flag football game, YouTube is hosting a tailgate concert headlined by rapper Post Malone. Several top YouTube creators will also be creating content from New Orleans.

Influencers are high on the list for brand activations and sponsorships

Influencers are also showing up in traditional TV ads during the game. TikTok influencer Alix Earle is in ads from Carl's Jr. and Poppi. Poppi's ad also features creators like Jake Shane and Rob Rausch.

Major brands like Gatorade and Verizon are inviting influencers to their activations around the Super Bowl and incorporating them into their marketing strategies around the game again this year, as well.

For example, Gatorade is on the ground with athletes like Caitlin Clark and George Kittle and influencers like The Pointer Brothers and Katie Feeney for its Gatorade Lab activation. And, Verizon's activation will feature influencer Tineke Younger, who will host a brunch and cook her favorite Super Bowl dishes, as well as designer Kristin Juszczyk, who will showcase her designers.

Still, some in the influencer industry said they noticed a dip in the number of brand activations and opportunities compared to last year's game. That's in part because there's more limited space for these activations in New Orleans compared to last year's Super Bowl host.

"There's definitely still stuff going on, but it's just a noticeable dip," Jack Settleman, a sports content creator and CEO of Snapback Agency's sister company, Snapback Sports, told BI.

Settleman is doing brand work with Crown Royal while in the Big Easy. He has been to the Super Bowl several times and witnessed it embrace creators firsthand. He went from having to sneak his way into Radio Row to having his own booth among the media outlets on the convention center floor.

"The NFL has absolutely embraced creators," said Settleman. "As a creator, it's really exciting to see those opportunities."

With a wide audience tuning in for the big game, spanning generations, partnering with content creators is an easy way for these brands and the NFL to appeal to everyone and get content directly to specific audiences that may be outside the traditional football fandom.

"The NFL is seeing more new fans than ever before," Emily Boido, head of consumer engagement for Gatorade, told BI. "By partnering with a wide variety of influential voices in and around the sport, we have the opportunity to reach these expanding audiences in a way that's authentic to the brand."

• This NFL season has been bad for sportsbooks, mostly because gamblers kept winning.
• Betting favorites largely came out on top during the season.
• In Super Bowl 2025, an Eagles win against the Chiefs in a high-scoring game could hit sportsbooks' revenue.

Americans are expected to legally bet $1.4 billion on the Super Bowl this year, but the game might not be a windfall for sports-betting companies.

This NFL season was pretty bad for sportsbooks, mostly because gamblers kept winning. Betting favorites largely came out on top during the season, particularly in December.

Casual bettors tend to put their money on the favorites, so sports betting companies had to pay out.

"When favorites win, the public usually wins," Chad Beynon, senior analyst at Macquarie, told Business Insider. "So in December, a lot of people won money."

Take the final "Monday Night Football" game of the season between the Detroit Lions and the San Francisco 49ers. The Lions were favorites to win in almost every bet on the December 30 game, analysts at MoffettNathanson pointed out. Win they did. The final score of 40-34 also covered both bets on the 3.5-point spread and the over of 50.5 total points in the game, per MoffettNathanson.

"This MNF game is one of the most glaring examples of unfavorable sports outcomes, with almost every prop bet along with the game lines of the Lions as favorites and the over on total points all hitting," MoffettNathanson wrote in a January report.

FanDuel owner Flutter said on January 7 that it expected US revenue for 2024 to be about $370 million lower because of this "period of very unfavorable US sports results."

"The 2024/2025 NFL season to date has been the most customer friendly since the launch of online sports betting with the highest rate of favorites winning in nearly 20 years," Flutter wrote in the announcement.

Some analysts, including Macquarie, also lowered their financial forecasts for publicly traded sports betting operators due to the very bad month.

The Eagles are favorites to win the Super Bowl

So, what does all this mean for the Super Bowl?

The Super Bowl is the most bet-on event of the year. It accounts for nearly 1% of the annual amount wagered in the industry, known as handle, according to estimates from the gambling industry research firm Eilers and Krejcik Gaming.

Nearly 80% of DraftKings Super Bowl bettors are expecting it to be a high-scoring game with over 48.5 points. And they're leaning toward the Philadelphia Eagles to beat the Kansas City Chiefs, with 55% betting on an Eagles win. That's per DraftKings as of Thursday afternoon.

"A bad outcome would be lots of points and the Eagles winning," Beynon explained.

If the Eagles win in a high-scoring game, there are also lots of other proposition bets — will Travis Kelce score a touchdown? Will Jalen Hurts throw for 250 yards? — that could compound how "bad" the outcome actually is for US sportsbooks.

Betting operators are also hoping for an exciting game that people will stay engaged in. With in-play betting, people can place bets into the fourth quarter.

"You want an entertaining game," Beynon said. "You want people to tune in until the end."

The best-case scenario for sportsbooks as of now is a Chiefs win with under a 48-point total score.

That said, the Super Bowl is a huge opportunity — the biggest opportunity of the year — for sports betting to bring in casual bettors and try to keep them around. Sportsbooks are investing in marketing and promotions around the game. FanDuel, for example, is running a TV ad.

To that end, it's not a long-term threat to the business for gamblers to win every once in a while.

• Novelty prop bets around the Super Bowl are centering on Taylor Swift this year.
• Many of these bets are on unregulated sites since it's generally not legal to offer them in the US.
• Legal US betting apps are getting in on the action in other ways, including with "Swiftie Specials."

Will Travis Kelce propose to Taylor Swift on the field after the Super Bowl? Will Swift take the stage during halftime?

With the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl and Swift expected to be in the audience, many novelty prop bets this year are centering on the megastar. Gamblers are betting on everything from how many times Swift will appear during the broadcast to what she'll wear.

These bets are happening, for the most part, on offshore platforms — sites like Bovada and BetOnline — that are unregulated and can't operate legally in the US.

While sports betting is legal in more than 30 US states, regulators have strict rules on what Americans can wager on. Prop bets — or wagers on outcomes other than who will win or lose a game — are generally limited to the action in a sporting event and events with definitive outcomes. The limitations vary by state.

But legal gambling operators in the US don't want to miss out entirely. While they can't craft bets around Swift's actions, they're trying to pull her into prop bets focused on star players.

DraftKings, for instance, has a menu of over 30 "Swiftie Specials." These are typical prop bets but named after Swift songs. They include the "Shake It Off," which has the Philadelphia Eagles scoring first and the Chiefs to win. The "Mine" bets Kelce will get 87 or more receiving yards and score one or more touchdowns. The "I Knew You Were Trouble" wagers that the Eagles running back Saquon Barkley will get 250 or more rush and receiving yards. And the "Deja Vu" has the Chiefs winning by exactly 3 points. (While the song is sung by Olivia Rodrigo, Swift has a cowriting credit.)

"We're seeing a lot of interest on the Taylor Swift-related special, so we're very excited to roll those out," DraftKings' chief marketing officer, Stephanie Sherman, told Business Insider.

The betting operator Bet365 has similar offerings, including the "1989" on Kelce to have a reception for 19 or more yards and 89 or more receiving yards, as well as the "22" on the Chiefs tight end to hit a record 22-plus receiving yards in each half.

In North American markets like Ontario, where the restrictions are a little more lax, operators like FanDuel and BetMGM legally can — and are — offering bets on whether Kelce will propose on the field.

"If there's an opportunity to leverage her fame and her involvement with Kelce and the Kansas City Chiefs and her being at the game and being part of the broadcast, I think people are going to try to pull this off," Jason Logan, a senior analyst at the gambling affiliate site Covers.com, told BI.

Why you can't legally bet on a Kelce-Swift proposal in the US

The restrictions against many types of prop bets in the US are largely set up to prevent markets from being manipulated. For example, members of Swift's inner circle might be privy to what the artist plans to wear to the game.

"That's the nightmare scenario for gaming control boards," Logan said. "Someone knows that information and can leverage it to manipulate the markets."

That's why legal operators like DraftKings or FanDuel can't offer bets in the US on whether Swift will appear onstage with Kendrick Lamar during halftime, for example.

Swift isn't the sole focus of this Super Bowl's novelty prop bets. Gambling operators are also taking wagers in some US states on the coin toss, which is related to the action in a game and has a definitive outcome. Other novelty bets available legally in places like Ontario — and offered by some offshore sites — include how long the national anthem will run and the color of the Gatorade bath.

The American Gaming Association estimates that Americans will wager a record $1.4 billion legally on Super Bowl LIX. Some analysts have pegged the figure even higher, at about $1.7 billion.

With that much at stake, it's easy to see why companies like DraftKings are chasing Swifties this year. The star has helped bring in a new fan base for the NFL since she began dating Kelce and showing up to support him at games. Last year, a 24% spike in 18- to 24-year-old women viewers helped drive a record 123.7 million average viewers for the Super Bowl, Sportico reported, citing Nielsen data.

Betting apps want a piece of that pie.

"They're trying to leverage that interest, the cross-the-aisle interest, bringing in fans that might not be big football fans," Logan said.

• Humor, nostalgia, and celebrities are set to feature heavily in this year's Super Bowl commercials.
• Brands are aiming for safe, lighthearted ads amid political tensions and economic challenges.
• Data shows Super Bowl advertisers have leaned heavily on celebrities since 2020.

Super Bowl advertisers are leaning into humor, nostalgia, and generous use of celebrities this year as brands look to provide levity — and avoid controversy — in a politically charged year.

Some advertisers have spent more than $8 million to secure 30 seconds of airtime, a person familiar with the matter told Business Insider. They asked for anonymity to discuss sensitive sales negotiations; their identity is known to BI. Marketers will have spent many millions more on production, securing A-list celebrity endorsements, and buying online ads. More than 123 million viewers tuned in to last year's Super Bowl, according to TV measurement firm Nielsen.

Amid these high stakes, advertising insiders said brands have been more likely to play it safe in recent years, wary of a backlash and as they look to guarantee a return on their investment. The ads and teasers released so far for Super Bowl LIX appear to follow that trend.

"Since COVID, Super Bowl ads have taken a pretty decisive turn from being fairly edgy, fairly risque, to ones that are much, much more conscious of the national mood, of sentiment, politics — they sort of became very PC, really shying away from anything that could offend anybody," said Sean Muller, CEO of the ad measurement company iSpot.tv.

Marketers are highly attuned to the recent rollbacks of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs across both corporate America and the federal government.

Bud Light famously became embroiled in a wave of conservative backlash after it featured transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney in a 2023 social media promotion. Bud Light's Super Bowl spot this year follows a much more familiar beer-marketing playbook. Its "Big Men on Cul-de-sac" ad features comedian Shane Gillis, rapper Post Malone, and twice Super Bowl winner Peyton Manning hosting a raucous backyard party.

"Advertisers are really smart to stay away from politically charged themes at all times, but to the extent that they get into something like that, they really shouldn't be doing it when economic times are tough, or there's something negative in the national mood," said Charles Taylor, Villanova School of Business marketing professor and author of the coming book "Winning the Advertising Game: Lessons from the Super Bowl Ad Champions."

Super Bowl advertisers are playing for laughs this year

Comedy is the resounding theme of this year's crop of Super Bowl commercials. According to Daivid, an AI platform that predicts viewers' likely reactions to ads, 14 of the first 19 ads released online ahead of the game featured "amusement" as their top emotion.

Examples include the "It Hits the Spot" ad for Hellmann's Mayonnaise, which enlisted Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan to humorously recreate the classic deli scene from "When Harry Met Sally." Elsewhere, Adam Brody sounds a Pringles can like a blowing horn to conjure the facial hair off famous mustachioed men, including Chiefs coach Andy Reid, NBA star James Harden, the actor Nick Offerman, and Mr. Potato Head. And Coors Light features a slew of CGI sloths who encapsulate what it's like to have a "case of the Mondays" after staying up late on Super Bowl Sunday.

Brynna Aylward, North America chief creative officer of the ad agency Adam&EveDDB, said the overriding warmth of the ads released so far reflects "the hug that we all need this year."

Advertisers have clamored to feature celebrities

The sheer number of celebrities in the commercial breaks won't go unnoticed.

In 2010, only around one-third of Super Bowl ads featured a celebrity, but according to iSpot.tv, celebrities starred in around 70% of the ads in every Super Bowl since 2020.

"It's a shortcut to get people's attention, to get people really excited, and to really say what your brand stands for in tying it to a personality," DDB's Aylward said.

Keep an eye out for celebrities who appeal to Gen Z — see Nerds with singer-songwriter Shaboozey, for example — as this generation moves further into adulthood and has increased buying power, Aylward added.

Uber Eats' 60-second ad will feature a host of well-known stars: Matthew McConaughey, Charli XCX, Greta Gerwig, Sean Evans, Kevin Bacon, and Martha Stewart — seemingly looking to appeal to viewers of all ages.

"We know most of America tunes in to the Super Bowl, from the hardcore football fans to those who watch exclusively for the ads and everyone in between," said Georgie Jeffreys, Uber's head of marketing for North America. "That's why our Uber Eats campaign for the Big Game this year strives to have a little something for everyone."

Nostalgia in numbers

Other Super Bowl advertisers are betting that nostalgia will ensure their commercial success.

Budweiser's cinematic Clydesdale horses and Doritos, with its user-generated "Crash the Super Bowl" contest, are among the returning advertisers hoping to stir memories of Super Bowls past.

Instacart's first-ever Super Bowl ad features the Jolly Green Giant, Kool-Aid Man, Pillsbury Doughboy, and the Energizer Bunny, among other famous brand characters, joining forces to deliver groceries.

Instacart's chief marketing officer, Laura Jones, said the company didn't want to use a celebrity as a "crutch" and instead wanted to try something different.

"We said, let's actually break the patterns," Jones said. "Let's not do what everyone else is doing. And frankly, it'll either be a huge hit or a huge flop."

Whatever theme marketers opt for, Super Bowl ads have become much more than a 30-second TV ad. There are the teasers, pre-game promotions and competitions, on-the-ground experiences on game day, and then the social media activity that looks to maintain the momentum long after the final whistle.

"Brands are spending so much more money on Super Bowl ads for such a short time; they are trying to maximize this opportunity more than ever," said Minkyung Kim, assistant professor of marketing at Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business.

Margaret Johnson, the chief creative officer at Goodby Silverstein & Partners, has worked on Super Bowl campaigns for Cheetos, Pepsi, and E-Trade, among others, in her 29-year tenure at the creative agency. For Super Bowl LIX, the agency has produced campaigns for Doritos and Mountain Dew Baja Blast. Johnson said the Super Bowl is set to remain advertising's tentpole event for years to come.

"It's one of the last remaining collective viewing experiences and, with the impact you can have on culture, I would say 100% it's worth it," Johnson said.

Correction: February 4, 2025 — An earlier version of this story misstated the name of a brand character appearing in Instacart's ad; it's the Energizer Bunny, not the Duracell Bunny.

• Sam Mewis launched the women's soccer podcast "The Women's Game" about a year ago.
• The former US soccer star has grown the show into one of the most listened-to in women's sports.
• Mewis explains her conversational approach and expansion plans with the media company Men In Blazers.

Former US soccer star Sam Mewis is part of a new wave of media personalities reshaping women's sports coverage.

The 32-year-old former US Women's National Team player was considered one of the best in her position until a knee injury forced her to retire from soccer in 2023. Mewis could no longer play the game she had dedicated her life to, but that didn't mean she couldn't stay close to it.

Mewis joined the soccer-media company Men In Blazers Media Network to launch about a year ago its first women's sports vertical with a podcast, called "The Women's Game."

Until recently, women's sports were underserved by mainstream media. Because TV coverage was not widely available, women's sports have expanded in other areas like podcasting.

Mewis has built "The Women's Game" into one of the most listened-to podcasts in women's soccer. According to podcast database Podscan, the show had averaged 11,700 listeners per episode since its launch and was the 22nd-most listened-to soccer podcast in the US on Apple Podcasts as of January 30. The other podcasts on the list largely focused on the men's sport.

"In many ways, what we were able to accomplish last year exceeded my expectations for going into the first year of a brand new vertical," Mewis told Business Insider.

'The Women's Game' feels like talking to a good friend about soccer

"The Women's Game," which has over 30,000 subscribers on YouTube, has stood out for its conversational approach.

Guests make regular appearances, some of whom are friends of Mewis from her days playing professional soccer, while others play on international teams. To date, its 45 guests have included USWNT captain Lindsey Horan, US teammates Rose Lavelle and Kelley O'Hara, and international players like Daniëlle van de Donk.

In addition to the flagship podcast, Mewis has shows under "The Women's Game" banner, including "Friendlies, " where she interviews athletes one-on-one, and "Good Vibes FC," which she cohosts with her former teammates Becky Sauerbrunn and Lynn Williams.

The podcasts aim to create an environment that makes listeners feel like they're talking with friends about soccer rather than getting hard analysis. In a recent Christmas special with 39,000 YouTube views, Mewis brought on players including Lavelle, O'Hara, and former US teammates Ali Kreiger and Megan Rapinoe, who debated topics from egg nog versus mulled wine to their favorite holiday songs.

Mewis attributed the tone of the show to her strong relationships with her cohosts, including Williams, with whom she previously hosted the Just Women's Sports podcast "Snacks."

"I feel safe when I'm with them to be myself and to explore topics that maybe I don't know every single thing about," Mewis said.

She said the approach also helped her take ownership of her personality. As a professional athlete, she had to be careful about what she said to the press, but she could control the narrative with her own show.

"It is an opportunity for players, people in the media, and in the public eye to show a side of themselves that we don't always get to see," said Mewis.

Podcasts offer regular content to hungry women's soccer fans. When the USWNT isn't playing, or the National Women's Soccer League isn't in season, coverage of the sport has been hard to find. Research firm Nielsen found through fan surveys that the biggest barriers to seeing women's sports have been a lack of information and access.

With "The Women's Game," Mewis aims to cover all sides of the sport, said Roger Bennett, one of the cofounders of Men In Blazers, who followed Mewis during her playing days and approached her for the podcast.

"She said, 'I want to cover this women's game, not just American, I want to cover it all globally, have the biggest names in world football come and talk about themselves to the audience and to build a regular narrative around the biggest games in women's football,'" Bennett said. "That's exactly what we've set out to do."

The popularity of women's soccer has risen worldwide. In a 2023 Nielsen survey, 41% of the global respondents said they were excited about the Women's World Cup, rising from 34% before the 2019 tournament.

Fresh funding could help expand 'The Women's Game'

Looking ahead, Mewis is preparing for two major soccer events: the 2027 Women's World Cup and the 2028 Olympics. She also wants to bring international tournaments like the Euros or the Women's Africa Cup of Nations to North American audiences.

She wants to expand the vertical with more weekly programming, as well. It currently publishes two to three times a week across its three podcasts.

"The Women's Game" is set to receive fresh funding from a $15 million Series A round that Men In Blazers announced in January.

"As women's soccer explodes and just continues to grow, there's more and more space for people like me and companies to invest in content production around women's soccer," Mewis said.

• WWE and UFC have been surging in popularity.
• Their growth has helped owner TKO grow its media rights, sponsorship, and live events businesses.
• The company plans to expand its international events business and more to build on the momentum.

The owner of Ultimate Fighting Championship and World Wrestling Entertainment is going for a technical knockout.

TKO Holdings' combat sports are surging in popularity after boosting content output and pursuing new high-profile distribution deals.

WWE kicked off this month a $5 billion, 10-year deal with Netflix to stream its "Monday Night Raw." The debut drew 4.9 million views globally — including more in the US viewers than the program averaged on cable TV last year — and viewership has stayed strong in the early weeks.

UFC, meanwhile, has become a content factory. According to an analysis by influencer-marketing company CreatorIQ, the number of creators posting about UFC rose to 6,400 as of November 2024 from 1,400 in 2018. That's helped boost the volume of social media posts about UFC.

The MMA promoter is now out looking for a lucrative new media-rights deal of its own.

"Sports is one of those things where everybody wants to watch live," Eric Handler, an analyst at Roth Capital Partners, told Business Insider. "You need to watch it as it happens, so UFC is benefiting from the increasing popularity of sports and the seismic shifts in the media landscape."

Combat sports have always had a cult following. Maybe it's the entertainment value of watching someone getting body-slammed through a table or the exciting combination of punches landing all over the opponent. With UFC and WWE, TKO is having a real moment and bringing combat sports into the mainstream.

WWE's Nick Khan and UFC's Dana White helped take TKO to new heights

TKO, led by CEO and exec chairman Ariel Emanuel and president and COO Mark Shapiro, acquired WWE in 2023. The deal brought the wrestling brand under the same roof as MMA promoter UFC. The group has since focused on expanding the possibilities for fight sports and entertainment through media deals, sponsorships, and live events.

TKO's revenue doubled year over year to $2.2 billion during the first three quarters of 2024, mainly due to the acquisition of WWE, which grew revenue by 14% year over year last quarter and adjusted profit by 72%.

WWE president Nick Khan, a former cohead of TV at talent agency CAA who joined the company in 2020, has shepherded its impressive growth. Khan sits on TKO's board of directors and has helped land some of the company's biggest streaming deals, including its Netflix deal and an earlier agreement to stream WWE Network on Peacock.

"They definitely put together a good management team," David Joyce, an analyst at Seaport Research Partners, told Business Insider.
"WWE had done a wise move, bringing in Nick Khan from CAA, who knows the sports talent, management, and media business well."

UFC is out looking for a similarly lucrative media-rights deal. TKO financial chief Andrew Schleimer told BI that UFC's US domestic media rights renewal is a top priority for 2025. Bloomberg reported the company is eying a package worth $1 billion when its current contract with ESPN expires at the end of this year.

Dana White, UFC's longtime president, has been one of the company's biggest promoters. He pushed the league and its fighters to embrace social media more than a decade ago. The league itself has about 46 million Instagram followers — that's more than the NFL — and White has 10 million followers on Instagram and 6.8 million on X. He constantly plugs the league and looks for new places for events to put on, getting content to fans and marketing the UFC.

UFC hasn't been without controversy during White's time at the helm. Last October, a Las Vegas judge approved a class action settlement that requires the UFC to pay $375 million to fighters who accused the company of violating antitrust laws to block rival promoters and maintain exclusive deals with fighters. The UFC has denied any wrongdoing.

Still, White's star has continued to rise, even beyond the world of sports. He's amassed influence in political and tech spheres as a longtime ally of President Donald Trump and through his recent appointment to the board of Mark Zuckerberg's Meta.

TKO's expansion plans

TKO has shown particular strength in expanding the young global fan base for its sports brands. Schleimer said TKO has over 1 billion fans worldwide in 75 countries. Many of them — 48% across TKO's properties — are ages 18 to 34 years old, the company said.

"The globalization of media and entertainment through streaming has also opened up a lot of new markets to sports that used to be very regionalized," said Joyce. "So there's really been a number of things in the industry that have really come together with TKO."

Schleimer, TKO's CFO, told BI that in 2025, the company's growth plans include renewing UFC's US media-rights deal, expanding TKO's events business, and adding new brand partners, particularly WWE.

To this end, in October, TKO agreed to acquire from Endeavor the Professional Bull Riders league, sports media rights and consulting company IMG, and events business On Location for $3.25 billion to expand its reach in the sports industry. The deal is expected to close in early 2025.

"Sponsorship is still a big area of upside for them, overall, TKO, mostly for WWE, and promotion of bull riding once that closes," said Joyce. "Global corporate marketers have realized that they need to be allocating more spending to live events and consumer experiences.

• Streaming companies are doubling down on live sports.
• ESPN is set to launch a new sports TV service, while streamers like Amazon add more live sports.
• We break down the streaming options for sports fans, including how to get NFL, NBA, and more games.

Live sports are officially in their streaming era.

A bevy of new services are set to launch this year, including live sports offerings from ESPN, Fubo, and DirecTV. Streamers like Netflix and Amazon Prime have been vying for sports rights, from NFL to soccer matchups. Even the Super Bowl is doubling down on streaming, with the big game set to run this year on Fox's Tubi.

Sports fans now have more alternatives to cable TV. Streamers are starting to compete with traditional TV in areas like cost, the ability to watch your favorite out-of-market teams, ease and convenience, and the overall user experience.

The new offerings could hasten cable TV's decline. Traditional pay-TV services such as cable and satellite lost roughly 50 million subscribers in the last 10 years, going from being in about 85% of households to 36% as of the third quarter of 2024, according to MoffettNathanson. Meanwhile, Leichtman Research Group's analysis of seven top streamers, including Netflix, Disney+, and Max, found those platforms had added over 28 million domestic subscribers in the last year alone.

Still, there isn't truly a one-size-fits-all approach to sports streaming like there is for other categories, such as music. Live sports are increasingly fragmented in the streaming world. Where sports fans once turned to the TV guide to find the game, they must now navigate broadcast, a slew of streaming options, and local channels.

"In the shift to streaming, sports fans have definitely drawn the short end of the stick," Alan Wolk, the cofounder and lead analyst at TVREV, told Business Insider. "They're the ones more than any other group or genre who are frustrated because it's all over the place."

If you're a sports fan considering a switch to streaming, here is a comprehensive list of what leagues are broadcast where, how to find them, and how much it will cost.

Live-TV streaming services

The first step in making the jump is identifying your sports-viewing needs. Is it important to have your local teams? Are you looking to watch one team all year round? Or maybe you want to watch one league, like the NFL or the NBA, and you want to go all in on whatever access is available to you.

Companies such as Fubo, YouTube TV, Sling TV, and Hulu + Live TV offer streaming alternatives to the basic cable bundle. These services carry live sports from most of the major broadcasters and sports networks, such as ESPN and TNT, as well as entertainment channels and DVR options.

Some also have local channels, but the regional offerings are generally less robust than those on cable.

Still, the packages are a bit cheaper, with most starting at around $80 a month, compared to the $140 cost of the average cable and internet bill in major US cities.

And you could pair any of these with an indoor TV antenna to access your local TV stations for games on ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox.

Here is a breakdown of the streaming-based cable alternatives and what they include:

More options are on the way. Fubo and DirecTV have announced "skinny" bundles of sports channels at lower price points because they aren't laden with entertainment networks.

Streamers with live sports

Beyond the cable alternatives, many major streaming services carry live sports.

Below is a high-level overview of the popular US streamers, the sports they carry, and their prices. For the most part, each platform only offers a selection of games from each league. Amazon, for example, is set to stream 66 regular-season NBA games starting later this year, while NBC gets up to 100 games, with some running on streamer Peacock and others on its TV network.

Streaming services by sport

Cobbling together the best streaming services for you depends on the type of sports fan you are.

Wolk, the analyst, said there are two main types of sports fans: "You have fans of a team, and people who are fans of a sport."

Wolk explained that if you are a diehard Boston Celtics fan, you might want access to all the team's games without blackouts and the ability to watch games regionally when they're broadcast on a local network like NESN, for example.

General fans of the sport would be more interested in a mix of NBA games, on the other hand.

Whether you want to watch one league or cram your weekends with sports, here is a breakdown of the streaming options by sport, including the NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, college sports, and combat sports.

NFL

NFL games are available across several streaming services without a cable subscription. While national game broadcasts, like NBC's "Sunday Night Football," are available for free with a digital antenna, you'll need a streaming subscription to watch other matchups like the Thursday night games on Amazon.

Here's where you can find most NFL games on streaming:

• Amazon Prime Video has "Thursday Night Football." A stand-alone Prime Video subscription costs $8.99 a month. If you have a Prime membership ($14.99 a month), the games are included.
• ESPN+, which costs $11.99 a month, has most Monday-night games.
• Paramount+, which starts at $7.99 a month, streams the NFL games that air on CBS.
• Fox is streaming the Super Bowl for free on Tubi this year.
• NFL Sunday Ticket with YouTube TV is the simplest way to watch teams outside your market. You can add the package on top of an existing YouTube TV subscription or as a standalone service through YouTube (pricing for the 2025-26 season hasn't been announced yet). It can also be bundled with NFL RedZone for an extra $10.99.
• NFL RedZone, which shows the key moments from every game on Sunday afternoons, is also available as an add-on to live-TV streaming services like Fubo, Hulu+Live TV, Sling TV, and the standard YouTube TV plan.

NBA and WNBA

NBA and WNBA games mainly stream on Max, for now, and through the leagues' direct-to-consumer platforms.

• Max streams a selection of NBA and WNBA games. It'll cost $9.99 a month with ads, plus an additional $9.99 a month for the B/R Sports add-on.

This is set to change with the coming 2025-26 season, where NBA and WNBA games will be spread across Amazon, Peacock, and ESPN's upcoming stand-alone service.

The NBA and the WNBA also each have a League Pass, which are a one-stop spot for out-of-market games.

• NBA League Pass starts at $49.99 a season. It can also be bundled with a YouTube TV subscription for an additional $14.99 a month.
• WNBA League Pass is $12.99 a month.

MLB

MLB has its own streaming service and streams some games through partners Apple TV+ and Roku.

• Apple TV+ streams "Friday Night Baseball," which features a doubleheader every Friday when in season. The service costs $9.99/month.
• Roku offers Sunday MLB games for free with a Roku streaming device.
• MLB Network, the league's TV network for live out-of-market games, offers a stand-alone streaming subscription for $5.99 a month. For an extra dollar a month, it offers an "At Bat" bundle with live game audio, minor league games, and highlights.

Soccer

• NBC's Peacock streams a selection of live Premier League matches. The service costs $7.99 a month with ads.
• Paramount+ has the rights to the UEFA Champions League games through its standard subscription, which costs $7.99 a month.
• Apple TV streams Major League Soccer through the league's direct-to-consumer option, MLS Season Pass. It costs $14.99 a month through the Apple TV app, or $12.99 a month with a $9.99 Apple TV+ subscription.

For women's soccer, NWSL matches are streamed across Paramount+, ESPN+, Amazon Prime Video, and league's free streaming service, NWSL+.

College sports

College sports have a streaming home on ESPN through an exclusive deal with the NCAA.

• ESPN+ carries a selection of ESPN's rights to 40 NCAA championships, like football and women's basketball, with some rounds exclusively available on the platform.
• Paramount+ also carries a few college events, including the March Madness games that air on CBS.
• Peacock has Big Ten games.
• B/R Sports has the rights to college football and the March Madness tournament through a Max subscription.

Combat sports

Combat sports like boxing or MMA are included in some streaming subscriptions, but some are pay-per-view and cost an additional fee to watch. The price can vary by match.

• ESPN+ has UFC and the PFL. Pay-per-view fights are also on ESPN+.
• Fight Pass, UFC's streaming service, is $9.99 a month or $95.99/year. The pass gives you the entire UFC library, pay-per-view preliminary fights, and other combat sports.
• Netflix streams WWE's "Raw" on Monday nights, which premiered earlier this year to 4.9 million viewers around the world.
• Peacock streams other live WWE events.

What's next: stand-alone ESPN and 'skinny' sports bundles

The landscape of sports TV many soon look very different. In the coming year, expect to see:

• The fall launch of ESPN's flagship streaming service, which is expected to include ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN News and some college conferences, along with the ability to watch things that are on ESPN+.
• A new sports-TV bundle from Fubo.
• A "skinny" sports bundle from DirecTV called MySports. MySports will allow DirecTV users to pick and choose which networks are most important to them, and bundle them together for $49.99 for the first three months.

However you go about this new era of sports TV, there will be no shortage of content to consume. Whether you choose one service for a single sport or a combination of streamers to replace cable TV, the options are there for you to explore.

• TikTok is veering toward a US shutdown after the Supreme Court upheld a divest-or-ban law.
• The app is set to leave app stores and may go dark on Sunday if its owner, ByteDance, doesn't divest.
• TikTok creators and their teams are tired from months of uncertainty, but cautiously hopeful too.

TikTok is in trouble.

The company is set to disappear from US app stores on Sunday due to a divest-or-ban law that requires its owner, ByteDance, to sell the app by January 19 or essentially cease operating in the country. TikTok may stop showing content in the US and "go dark" over the weekend.

For TikTok creators and their teams, ongoing uncertainty around the app's US future has sparked frustration and fatigue.

"We've been dealing with this for months," said Julian Andrews, founder of talent management firm Talentiish. "I just sort of want the situation to be over so we know how to move on."

Some in the talent community are cautiously optimistic that a solution will emerge to save TikTok. President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to try to rescue the app once in office, though his options could be limited.

"So many of us are still holding out hope that it will work out," Barbara Jones, CEO of Outshine Talent, said.

Others aren't holding their breath and are instead focusing on established alternatives, such as Instagram reels and YouTube shorts, as well as challenger apps like Clapper, Flip, and RedNote.

"Many of our clients are making accounts on RedNote and Flip as well as downloading their data from the TikTok app," Jones said. "They are trying to be as prepared as possible."

Creators may be hesitant to commit to new platforms, however, when the advertising dollars are much more reliable on major players like Instagram.

Instagram is, for the most part, the platform of choice among those Business Insider spoke to who are pivoting from TikTok.

Fallen Media, which runs TikTok shows like "What's Poppin? With Davis!" said it will be heavily investing in Instagram reels, for example.

"I have suggested to my clients not to focus on any new platforms and focus on the tried and true," Andrews at Talentiish said.

In the meantime, there's still no clear answer as to what happens this weekend.

"The truth is we don't really know what's going to happen on Sunday, which I think is the crazy part," said Fallen Media CEO Sol Betesh.

Creators are exhausted and devastated to say goodbye to TikTok

As news stories around a TikTok ban swing between good news and legal defeats, some creators have sunk into despair. The Supreme Court loss on Friday hit particularly hard for those whose businesses depend on the app.

"The ruling is truly devastating for me as someone who built their platform starting on TikTok," said Sofia Bella, a TikTok creator with 4.8 million followers. "Losing the majority of my audience is a difficult reality to face, and while I'm doing everything I can to prepare, it's hard not to feel like I'm starting over."

Andrews said the job of talent manager has teetered between acting as a therapist and strategist for the creators they manage.

Some creators are actively fighting against a TikTok ban, including Vitus Spehar, who runs the news account @underthedesknews. Spehar has been covering breaking news and political developments around the divestment. They said Americans should call their senators and other representatives to demand action against the law.

Still, other creators who have experienced burnout from TikTok are welcoming a possible shift if the app goes down.

"Generally, the tone from most internet creators I've spoken to has been entirely apathetic," said Tati Bruening, a TikTok creator with 2.4 million followers. "The pacing of content creation for TikTok was a recipe for burnout."

Building a strategy for doomsday

Even as the creator economy braces for the loss of its favorite corner of the internet, this moment is a lesson for many.

"Stop building brands on social media that other people own," Jennifer Powell, a talent manager who works with creators like Tezza and Ty French, told BI. "This can and will happen again. Start your website, get newsletters going, blogs, use affiliates, turn it into a brand, and own your own little place on the web."

A TikTok ban could also be a gold rush for social media startups as they race to fill the void.

"There's never been a better time to start a creation or curation company," said Em Herrera, a former investor at Slow Ventures who recently founded a firm called Creator Venture Accelerator.

• Streaming TV company Fubo took on Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery, and it paid off.
• The giants canceled plans for a joint sports streamer that Fubo had raised antitrust concerns about.
• Fubo struck a deal with Disney this week to settle the suit and merge with Hulu's live TV business.

Fubo took on Goliath and cashed out.

The small streaming TV company fought against media giants Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery's plans to join forces for a new streaming service called Venu that would bring together their sports content. Fubo filed an antitrust suit in 2024 that argued the companies were planning a service they had blocked competitors like Fubo from offering.

This week, Fubo struck a deal with Disney to drop the lawsuit and merge with Hulu's live-TV business. Then, on Friday, Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery announced that they abandoned plans for the streamer.

"Had Venu happened, it would have been a threat" to Fubo, Michael Pachter, a stock analyst at Wedbush that covers Fubo, told Business Insider.

Because Venu would have been owned by three large companies with claws in the sports broadcasting industry, Pachter said a company like Fubo would have been scared of Venu's potential to get exclusive access to content and become a major space for live sports. Satellite TV competitor DirecTV also indicated it would continue the antitrust battle against Venu after Fubo's lawsuit was settled.

Now, Fubo is walking away with a sizable payday and the backing of one of the largest players in sports media. The Venu partners agreed to pay Fubo $220 million to settle the case, and Disney is set to give Fubo a $145 million loan. Not a bad outcome for a company that posted a $110 million net loss last quarter.

Fubo now has a bunch of cash to play with as it figures out its identity in this new position.

Since the Disney merger was announced on Monday, Fubo's stock has risen over 250%.

How Fubo stands to benefit from Venu's demise

Fubo, with a market capitalization of $1.7 billion compared to Disney's $197 billion, now has new pathways to grow its sports streaming business.

Fubo CEO David Gandler said during an investor call that Fubo could create "skinnier sports, news, and entertainment bundles."

On Monday, when the deal was announced, Fubo executives suggested Fox would be part of a skinny bundle as well, as BI's Peter Kafka reported.

That could create an offering similar to what sports fans could have gotten with Venu. Venu planned to charge around $43 a month for sports content from the three partners.

Fubo could also have other options to bundle its service with Disney's, on top of the merger with Hulu + Live TV. As part of the new agreement, Disney would own about 70% of Fubo.

"Fubo is going to generate a lot more sales," said Pachter. "Disney, Hulu, and ESPN brands add a lot of value to Fubo, which is not as recognizable as a brand."

CEO Gandler surprised some media observers when he first decided to challenge Disney, but the legal battle seems to have paid off.

"I was … impressed by his gutsiness," said Pachter. He acted promptly and forcefully, he had good legal advice, and it surprises me that he won but he gained a lot more respect."