Even in a period of accelerating change both internally and externally, the king of streaming still rules the market.

Netflix’s latest earnings report shows the extent to which it is maintaining its industry dominance, with sports increasingly at the center of that position. The company reported an updated subscriber total of 277.7 million for the second quarter, by far the largest such base in the industry. The figure is up 3% from 269.6 million in the prior quarter and up 16% from 238.4 million a year ago. 

Revenue grew 17% in the quarter to $9.56 billion, while net income increased 44% to $2.15 billion. The company’s members with ad-supported plans grew by 34%, showing the increasing role of that dual-revenue stream in its future. Netflix additionally raised the low end of its full-year guidance, and it expects 2024 revenue to grow by 14% to 15% from last year. 

Perhaps most notably, the market unease stemming from Netflix’s April announcement that it will no longer disclose subscriber numbers beginning with 2025’s first quarter has since eased, if not dissipated altogether. Shares in Netflix closed Friday down 1.5% to $633.34 each, but have increased 14% since the prior earnings report in April. 

“There was strong performance across the board,” Netflix chief financial officer Spencer Neumann said on an investor call. “[There was] good momentum across the business, strong revenue growth, member growth, and profit growth. … We’re also continuing to get better and better at translating improvements in our service into business value.”

Netflix’s ‘Event Model’ Around Sports

Perhaps the biggest news for Netflix during the quarter was the company’s three-year deal with the NFL to show exclusive Christmas Day games, beginning with a doubleheader this year. But sports-related programming continues to be a growing driver for the company, including a major deal in January with WWE for its weekly flagship show, Raw.

“We’re in live [content] because our members love it, it drives a ton of engagement, and it drives a ton of excitement,” said Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos. “Those things are very valuable. So the good thing is that advertisers like that, too, and they like it for the exact same reason.”

More recently, The Roast of Tom Brady attracted what Netflix described as its “largest live audience yet,” with 22.6 million views. It’s all part of a broader push by Netflix to create a series of big events on its platform that allow the company to operate in sports, but still avoid the bigger and more costly rights investments that it has long resisted.

“When you offer [leagues] this event model that we’re building on, we’re really excited about our opportunity to do that without the [financial] risk that you’re talking about,” Sarandos said. 

After many U.S. sports fans got their first taste of elite cricket during this summer’s ICC Men’s T20 World Cup hosted partially in Florida, New York, and Texas, the country’s burgeoning professional competition is making noticeable strides in its second season.

Major League Cricket will finish its 21-match schedule this week before a four-team playoff crowns a new champion. While the league has six teams from coast to coast, all matches have been played at two cricket-specific venues in Texas and North Carolina. Still, attendance is tracking to potentially surpass the 70,000 fans who showed up for the inaugural season in 2023.

MLC’s media rights are held by a niche cricket-focused channel called Willow by Cricbuzz. But the broadcaster struck deals with mainstream regional sports networks in each team’s market in an effort to attract more fans.

• Dallas: Bally Sports Southwest
• Los Angeles: Bally Sports SoCal
• Washington, D.C.: Monumental Sports Network
• San Francisco: NBC Sports Bay Area
• Seattle: Root Sports
• New York: YES Network

Willow took a similar approach during the T20 World Cup to get more exposure.

Money Game

Teams in MLC operate under a $1.15 million salary cap. While that’s well under the roughly $12 million that franchises can spend annually in the world’s richest cricket competition, the Indian Premier League, it’s not far off from other global leagues like Cricket Australia ($2 million) and The Hundred ($1.3 million) in the U.K.

“The money is good. But also the product’s good,” says Liam Plunkett (above, far right), a bowler for the San Francisco Unicorns who was a member of the England team that won the 2019 Cricket World Cup. “I think if the product wasn’t rolled out and the standard wasn’t good, people wouldn’t be that interested in coming across.” 

Plunkett has remained impressed with the quality of play two seasons in. “I think there were a lot of teething problems leading up to it, but when the competition started, it felt like you could be playing anywhere in the world,” he says.

Big Ambitions

Before this season, San Francisco made a splash when it signed Australia national team captain Pat Cummins to a four-year contract. Have those moves been difficult to make? “Surprisingly not,” Anand Rajaraman, a co-owner of the Unicorns, tells Front Office Sports. “I think everybody in the cricket world is excited about the possibility of the U.S. market.” 

Plunkett echoes that sentiment. “There’s definitely opportunities,” he says of being in the U.S. “Are you looking to play some good cricket? But also, are you looking to do some business deals and build yourself even further as a brand?”

Moving forward, Rajaraman says the next major step for MLC will be building stadiums in every market. The league’s schedule is growing to 34 games in 2025, and plans to expand to 10 franchises are in the works.