We’ve seen an explosion of sports TV channels, programming hours produced, and rights fees paid. In a recent report, Nielsen estimated 116 thousand hours of sports programming was made in 2013. This was an increase of 232% over the 2003 figure of just 35 thousand hours. (1) Impressive! But the fact that struck me was this: During the same period, Nielsen estimated the collective hours of sports viewing increased by only 27%, from 26 billion hours of collective viewing to 33 billion.
Source: New Data on Sports TV Viewing: Turning the Bubble into a Better Bundle