Scoring Big in Sports Streaming: Why Measurement Is the Real MVP

Live sports streaming is no longer an emerging trend—it’s a dominant force in media. U.S. live sports viewership is projected to grow by 21% by 2027 reaching 127.4 million viewers, according to eMarketer. With leagues distributing media rights across an expanding number of platforms—including CTV, mobile apps, and traditional linear TV—the challenge for advertisers isn’t just reaching fans; it’s accurately measuring them.

Today’s fragmented sports media landscape presents a fundamental problem: advertisers and media rights holders are working with incomplete or inaccurate data. A single fan might watch an NBA game live on ESPN, catch highlights on a mobile app, and stream the replay later—all of which could be counted separately, distorting audience estimates and making it difficult to measure actual reach and engagement.

This lack of measurement precision has real financial consequences for brands investing in premium sponsorships and advertising. Global spending on sports media rights surpassed $60.9 billion last year, an 18.9% increase over pre-pandemic levels. Advertisers paying a premium for live sports audiences need a cross-platform view to validate investment and ensure they are not simply buying redundant impressions.

Here’s a closer look at streaming’s sports playing field and why measurement is the ultimate game-changer.

A New Playbook for Cross-Platform Attribution

The stakes in sports advertising are higher than ever. With 80% of Gen Z fans watching sports content on their phones, advertisers must account for shifting consumption habits across digital, CTV, and traditional platforms. Traditional viewership counts fail to capture the full picture of where, how, and why audiences engage.

“A holistic approach to measurement is critical to ensuring advertisers reach real, engaged viewers—rather than counting the same audience multiple times. By working with partners like Magnite, we help the industry gain a clearer picture of audience behavior across platforms, enabling more effective ad delivery and greater impact.”

Brian Pugh – Chief Product Officer at Comscore

This shift isn’t just about knowing how many people watched—it’s about understanding how they interacted with the content and which channels were most effective in driving engagement.

How Magnite and Comscore Are Solving the Measurement Problem

To bring clarity to fragmented sports measurement, Magnite has partnered with Comscore to provide a deduplicated, person-level understanding of sports audiences. At the core of this initiative is Comscore Campaign Ratings (CCR), which provides advertisers with a unified view of audiences across digital and linear channels.

One of the biggest challenges in live sports measurement is co-viewing behavior—how many people are actually watching on a single screen. Traditional metrics often assume a one-to-one viewer-to-impression ratio, which can lead to significant miscalculations. Comscore’s methodology incorporates household panel data to estimate when multiple viewers are present, ensuring a more accurate representation of audience size. 

Another critical component of this partnership is incrementality analysis, which determines what portion of an audience is truly unique versus duplicated across platforms. If an advertiser reaches five million viewers across linear, CTV, and mobile, how many of those impressions represent distinct audience members rather than repeated exposure? The reverse is also important, where brands need to understand cross-platform ad exposure to drive audiences down the purchasing funnel, and Comscore can facilitate this.

These insights are essential for optimizing media spend and ensuring campaigns drive meaningful engagement rather than redundant reach.

The Imperative for Smarter Measurement

This year, more than 90 million U.S. viewers will stream a sports event at least once a month, a significant increase from 57 million in 2021. The rapid expansion of international sports, niche leagues, and women’s sports has further heightened the demand for cross-platform measurement. Women’s sports, in particular, have seen exponential growth, with TV ad spend surging 139% last year to $244 million.

It’s clear that with streaming rights now fragmented across multiple networks and platforms, marketers can no longer rely on legacy measurement frameworks. Advertisers need deeper insights into audience behavior to maximize the effectiveness of their media investments.

Through Magnite’s SSP, advertisers can:

●   Deduplicate audience measurement across linear, CTV, and mobile to assist in preventing inflated reach estimates.

●   Leverage first-party data to help enhance audience segmentation and help reduce wasted impressions.

●   Gain a full-funnel view of how sports campaigns perform across all screens, enabling the holistic measurement of sponsorships and ad placements in real-time.

The Future of Sports Advertising Belongs to Those Who Measure Smarter

Sports media has to change its playbook to capitalize on the rapid shift to streaming. While industry consolidation may be on the horizon, fragmentation isn’t going away. Leagues are striking exclusive streaming deals, new platforms are entering the market, and advertisers are expected to adapt.

In this environment, cross-platform measurement isn’t just an advantage—it’s a necessity. Advertisers who can track audience engagement accurately, optimize their media spend, and ensure their campaigns drive real impact will be the ones who come out ahead.

Much like games are won by tracking every point, yard, and stat, the future of sports streaming will be won by those who measure what matters most.