Is there anything better than sports that brings the world together? The answer is, perhaps, no. Sports is considered one of the best sources of entertainment and something that ties people of different ethnicities together. Often an ice-breaker, strangers can start talking with each other if they share a common sporting interest.
Imagine a person from Australia bumps into a person from the UK, and the two, despite being Ashes rivals, indulge in chatting about one of the most exciting sporting contests, which is nothing but the Ashes itself. Without a common thread, there is seldom any chance that the two unknowns would want to have a dialogue. Given the widespread popularity of different sports, it has touched the lives of billions and smoothly entered their houses.
To catch your favorite sporting star on the ground is a dream for many. However, if that dream cannot be fulfilled for some reason, the broadcasters ensure that the sporting extravaganza is streamed live. Live streaming guarantees that sports enthusiasts can atleast watch their favorite players playing in front of them with just an innocuous screen in the middle.
Looking at the sporting fans’ fraternity worldwide, there has always been a segment of the population that has been die-hard sports fans. Another part has developed an interest in sports because of the documentaries or biopics streamed on the OTT platforms. One of the classic examples is “The Last Dance,” a web series streamed on Netflix. This engaging web series is based on the journey of arguably the world’s best basketball player, Michael Jordan. The launch of this basketball series would have certainly done well in a world dominated by football and cricket.
When you talk about football and cricket, the UK is one of the regions that dominate the world. When you look at UK sports streaming trends, you realise the region boasts not only quality players but also enthusiastic fans. Like any other part of the world, the UK is one of the prominent consumers of sports streaming. “Sky” is the limit for sports fans based out of the UK. Be it football, rugby, cricket, tennis, golf, F1, or any other sport, the citizens of the UK are always geared to stay up-to-date with the ongoing sporting affairs.
So, how do the UK people satiate their undying hunger for watching sporting action? Usually, Google is the best ally. Those who want to stream any particular sport go to Dr. Google, and Google gives them the perfect prescription. Once Dr. Google hears “stream sports” or similar terms, it charts the diagnosis and prescribes the requisite elixir, which, in this case, is the live streaming of sports.
Though there is easy access to Google, it has been observed that many sports fans prefer to visit the particular website of the league to quench their thirst for sports streaming. For instance, cricket lovers may resort to the ICC website to avail of streaming services instead of typing “cricket streaming” or related terms in Google. As per Google Trends, this behavior has affected the number of searches directly on Google concerning sports streaming. There has been segmentation of viewers as few of them prefer the particular league website for seeking streaming services, while some reach out to Google. Apart from this, in 2020, it was witnessed that there was a substantial decline. It was inevitable that many tournaments were canceled due to the COVID-19 infection spreading thick and fast. Apart from this black swan event that took the world by storm, the searches have plummeted since 2017. The reason for this cited was the partnerships of significant sporting leagues with prominent streaming platforms.
With the FIFA World Cup just a stone’s throw away, the global event that will be staged in Qatar from November 20 to December 18 is expected to catapult streaming traction worldwide. So, are you equipped to witness this thrilling sporting affair? If not, pull up your socks because you don’t want to miss something as big as the FIFA World Cup and be an anomaly in the group of football fanatics.
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