• by Wayne Friedman , November 14, 2013

No doubt giving more worries to those multichannel TV channel distributors, a new report says sports media rights will continue to steadily climb at around 8% for the next four years.

A PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) new sports study says North American sports media rights will increase nearly 7.7% at a compound annual growth rate, to $17.1 billion by 2017. At the end of 2013, the estimated total media rights that TV networks pay will hit $12.4 billion -- up 5% from $11.8 billion a year ago.

The study notes that for next year, there will be a major spike -- up nearly 19% in 2014 from 2013. After that, yearly rises will slow somewhat: 7.9% in 2015, 2.8% in 2016, and 4.7% in 2017.

Higher media rights are a result of steady TV advertising revenue for sports TV programming -- a “safe haven,” according to the study, because sports is viewed live and remains less impacted in terms of viewership than on-demand programming.

For some time now, cable, satellite and telco TV distributors have been worried about increasing rights fees that TV networks continue to pay to sports leagues -- fees that those networks try to partially recoup by charging higher subscriber fees to multichannel video program distributors.

Sponsorship revenue will rise, but not as much as media rights -- climbing 6% on a compounded annual rate for the next four years to $17.7 billion. Sponsorship deals will continue to be blurred as they become integrated into bigger marketing plans that include media-buying plans and sales promotions efforts.

Baseball photo from Shutterstock