Sports fans today have more ways than ever to watch their favourite teams and leagues. Data from Hub Entertainment Research’s Evolution of Sports: What’s the Score? Wave 5 study finds that the growing number of services carrying games is also making sports harder for fans in the US to find.

Hub’s bi-annual sports study tracks how sports fans have adjusted to this changing landscape and explores the sports viewing options that US consumers value the most.

Key findings include:

Sports fans are increasingly frustrated trying to find games

As sports rights spread across more services (broadcast, cable and streaming), just finding the game they want to watch has become a challenge for fans – one that is taking a toll on their overall experience.

· The vast majority of sports fans (87 per cent) say it’s at least somewhat frustrating to figure out where to watch the sports they follow today, and almost a quarter saying they feel “very frustrated.”

Aggregator tools that make discovery easier

Some companies have already recognised this problem and rolled out features to make sports simpler to find. In the survey, Hub described two aggregator tools and asked fans if they would improve the viewing experience. The results were positive:

· 70 per cent said that ESPN’s ‘Where to Watch’ feature – which tells viewers where to find any game, even if it’s not on ESPN – would make their sports viewing experience easier.

· 60 per cent said the same about Roku’s ‘Sports Zone’ — an area of the Roku interface that gathers content about a particular sport into one place, so fans can easily find all of it across platforms.

All-inclusive rights attract subscribers and drive satisfaction.

Fragmentation is increasing the appeal of platforms that consolidate rights to an entire sport.

· 60 per cent of fans say they’re more likely to sign up for a service that carries *all* the rights to a sport they follow (and 30 per cent are “much more likely”).

· Among avid fans, the results are even more pronounced: almost 40 per cent  are “much more likely” to sign up

Exclusive rights can drive both acquisition and retention.

In an increasingly crowded ecosystem, investing in all-inclusive rights is a differentiator that makes a big difference. For example, we asked UFC fans about the organisation’s new rights deal, which will place all UFC events – including numbered pay-per-views – across Paramount’s networks and streaming platforms.

· 89 per cent of avid UFC fans say the new deal makes a Paramount+ subscription more valuable (and a third say it’s “extremely” more valuable).

· 93 per cent of avid UFC fans that already have Paramount+ say the new deal makes them more likely to keep their subscription (and 71 per cent say it makes them “much more likely”)

· Among avid UFC fans who *don’t* have Paramount+ already, 72 per cent say they’re more likely to sign up (and almost a third said they would “definitely” sign up).

“Fans will go to great lengths to watch the sports they care about—but that doesn’t mean they enjoy hunting across multiple apps to find them,” commented Jon Giegengack, Principal at Hub and one of the study authors. “Services that simplify the experience of watching sports—whether through discovery tools or by consolidating rights to an entire sport—are delivering more value to fans.  And more value means more satisfied users and lower churn.”

The findings are based on a survey of 3,733 US sports fans conducted in December 2025 – January 2026.

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Categories: Articles, Consumer Behaviour, Content, Research

Tags: ESPN, Hub, paramount, sports, ufc, usa