• by Wayne Friedman , October 1, 2019

Global sports TV rights fees --  pushed by rapidly growing streaming platforms -- are predicted to continue to rise sharply over the next six years.

Worldwide sports rights revenues will grow 75% over a seven-year period -- 2018 through 2025 -- to $85.1 billion from $48.6 billion, according to research group Rethink TV.

Association Football, commonly referred to as soccer in U.S., will grow its leading share to 37.4% ($31.9 billion) in 2025 from 25.1% ($12.8 billion) in 2018.

The study projects increased viewership in Europe's top leagues and in other regions: Asia-Pacific, including China, and North America. It also predicts rising viewership in other sports such as basketball.

In the U.S., other research estimates that the biggest sport franchise -- the NFL -- will collect $54.6 billion from TV networks as a result of 8-year deals running from 2014-2022. This includes Fox, CBS, NBC, ESPN, and DirecTV.

Sports programming costs in the U.S. as a percentage of cable average revenue per user came to an estimated 22.1% in 2018, according to Kagan, a unit of S&P Global Market Intelligence. This was up from a 14.1% share in 2009.

The average sports programming cost per subscriber more than doubled to $18.55 in 2018 -- from $9.09 in 2009.