Paris Olympics

More than 24 million people tuned into ITV and the BBC to watch Spain beat England in the Euro 2024 final in July. A month later, Warner Bros. Discovery streamed 3,800 hours of live Olympic competition, consumed by UK and European audiences to the tune of 7 billion minutes.

Clearly, sport still pulls in huge audiences, whether broadcast on linear TV or streamed on platforms such as Discovery+ and Max. But rather than resting on their laurels, platforms are looking to attract the next generation of fans via social media and YouTube.

Televised sport is big business, from the sums broadcasters pay for rights, to the audiences and advertising revenue it generates and the eye-watering salaries of its stars.

At the end of last month in Saudi Arabia, depending on broadcaster DAZN’s pay-per-view receipts, Tyson Fury could have pocketed more than £100m from his heavyweight unification fight against Ukraine’s Oleksandr Usyk. And he lost.