Providing more short-form content for fans and offering the content across multiple platforms is key to broadening the accessibility of a sport for fans, particularly among harder-to-reach demographics. To this end, Spanish top-flight football league LaLiga recently became the latest sports competition to sell highlights-only rights to broadcast partners, with several deals in the UK and Ireland as well as a global agreement. 

Sky will show highlights and clips on its Sky Sports News channel as well as its Sky Sports app and social channels, while podcast production company Goalhanger (co-owned by ex-footballer and presenter Gary Lineker) has also acquired the rights for highlights to be shown on its video podcasts alongside analysis of LaLiga matches. Beyond the UK, DAZN has also struck a global highlights rights deal to show clips on its new free-to-air LaLiga hub via the streaming platform.

LaLiga’s recent strategy reflects wider efforts across the sports industry to maximise the reach of various competitions and respond to shifting engagement habits among fans. The PGA Tour, for example, recently launched a quick-fire highlights series called ‘Rapid Rounds’ to be shared via its media partners, while a deal with CONMEBOL provides Brazilian YouTube channel CazéTV with near-live and highlights rights for Brazilian club football. In the live broadcast space, deals such as the German Bundesliga’s agreements with YouTube channels The Overlap and That’s Football in the UK, and CazéTV’s growing live rights portfolio, show an intent to reach fans where they are already watching content: According to Ampere’s Sports Consumer survey, 47% of sports fans watch sports content on YouTube at least monthly.

LaLiga’s deals are partly driven by the substantial amount of time sports spend engaging with non-live aspects of sports competitions. Ampere’s Q4 2024 Sports Consumer survey indicates that sports fans across 16 markets globally spend 1hr 58min on average watching highlights and post-match programmes per week, just over half (54%) of the amount of time they spend watching live sport. This figure becomes even more notable when looking at younger fans, with 18-24 year olds spending over 2 hours watching highlights, 64% of the time this age group spends watching live sport.

Ampere’s data also shows that fans in the 18-24 year old age bracket are less willing to pay to watch live sport than older fans. Highlights are therefore key to sports leagues in engaging these younger audiences, encouraging them to be invested in a single team or the league as a whole, with a view to converting them into paying customers in the future.