Netflix currently stuck on streaming ‘sports-adjacent’ instead of live sports

There seems to be a lot of focus on live sports streaming, but based on comments from Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, it appears the company plans to largely stay away from that game for the time being. “We really think we can make a really strong offering for sports fans on Netflix without becoming part of the difficulty of the economic model of live sports licensing.” They said during the company’s second-quarter earnings call on Wednesday.

That quote was the last part of a longer response about the company’s sports strategy. “We are very excited about the success of our sports-adjacent programming,” he said, pointing to recent titles Quarterback And Tour de France: Unchained. With the latter, he talked about how it was exactly the same as what we saw drive to survive, which introduces brand new audiences to a sport that’s been around for a really long time and isn’t very well understood. You do this through exceptional storytelling, not the liveliness of the game.

That strategy, Sarandos argued, lets Netflix “offer this wide variety of sports programming throughout the season for sports fans year-round” that draws on the company’s strength in storytelling.

(Disclosure: Vox Media Studios Produced full swingAnd ledge Recently produced a series with Netflix.)