Netflix Has No Plans to Expand Into Sports, Live News

Forum 3 years ago

Netflix Has No Plans to Expand Into Sports, Live News

Streaming giant Netflix currently has no plans to expand its streaming content into the realm of live news or sports, says CEO Reed Hastings. As battles continue to be waged for dominance over the ever-evolving streaming market, the need to stay once step ahead of the competition has arguably never been greater for Netflix.

However, in a recent interview with Variety, Hastings was asked about his new book, No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention, in which the streaming maverick declares that Netflix won’t be home to live news or sports. When asked about new content, Hastings maintained that every last cent of Netflix’s current budget is dedicated to building up bigger and better film and television productions:

I doubt news, but sports, video gaming, user-generated content — if you think of the other big categories, someday it could make sense. But right now, Ted’s [co-CEO and chief content officer Ted Sarandos] got every billion dollar earmarked for bigger movies, bigger series, animation of course… At least for the next couple of years, every content dollar is spoken for.

Hasting’s book is set to release on September 8 and will surely provide further insight into the mogul’s reasoning behind why news and sports aren’t quite a priority for Netflix at this current time. It seems like a good call on the part of Hastings, as live news simply isn’t something that people are eager to view in a streaming capacity.

However, streaming services have proven themselves indispensable sources of entertainment. In the coming years, a more varied approach to content – especially one that includes sports events, could indeed become key to helping Netflix remain number one.