Live sports fill an increasingly important role in acquiring and retaining streaming subscribers, as the rights to these events continue to shift from pay TV. Last week, we shared a preview of the latest ESPN and FOX One data from our Q4’25 State of Subscriptions Report on Sports and Streaming, and today, we’re excited to release the entire report.
The Q4’25 edition examines the current landscape and trends for sports programming on SVOD, including detailed looks into vMVPDs, league-specific services, and RSNs, along with sports-specific analyses using Antenna’s Subscriber Views data to measure the impact of sports programming on subscriber acquisition, retention, and engagement.
Given that Fox and ESPN had two of the largest remaining blocks of programming which were still exclusive to pay TV, many in the industry contemplated that the launch of their streaming services could inspire more cord-cutting. Antenna analyzes the health of virtual MPVD’s in order to gauge whether there is an indication of an impact from the Fox One and ESPN Unlimited launches on the category.
Sign-ups to vMVPDs hit 4.7M in Q3’25, down -12% YoY, but still showing the typical September sports bump. YouTube TV, which is the exclusive distributor of NFL Sunday Ticket, increased its market share to 44% in Q3’25, up +6pts YoY.
The NFL’s specialized services both surged in popularity in Q3. Antenna estimates 3.0M and 2.1M Subscriptions for NFL+ and NFL Sunday Ticket, respectively. NFL Sunday Ticket Subscriptions were up +37% in Q3’25, compared to Q3’24, and NFL+ Subscriptions were up +22% in Q3’25 vs. Q3’24.
If you’re interested in downloading your own copy of the full report, you can access it here. If you’re already on our distribution list, check your email; we’ve sent out a download link to everyone who has opted in to receive correspondence from Antenna. Antenna clients have exclusive access to a client-only expanded version of the Q4’25 State of Subscriptions report. Want to become an Antenna client? We want that, too! Drop us a line and let’s chat.
For more detailed information on Antenna’s methodology and definitions of core metrics, please visit http://www.antenna.live/methodology.
