How long can Netflix stick to the sidelines of sport?

Not everyone is a fan of Netflix’s Formula 1: Drive to Survive. Red Bull driver Max Verstappen declined to be interviewed for its latest season, declaring himself a “down-to-earth guy” who prefers “facts” to hyped-up incidents and exaggerated rivalries. Verstappen said he understood the streamer needed its documentary hit to be dramatic. It just isn’t his thing.

Drive to Survive has, however, become quite a lot of people's thing. Such is the skill with which it is made, it is even gripping viewers who don't otherwise follow Formula 1 and wouldn't have previously been able to tell their Mercedes from their Ferraris. Unsurprisingly, Netflix and Formula 1 this week confirmed that it has been renewed for a fifth and sixth season.

The behind-the-scenes show, made by Box to Box Films, has grown traction over time, Netflix said, with season four attracting its biggest audience to date and breaking into its weekly top 10 chart in 56 countries.

Indeed, its success has inspired another Box to Box commission focused on tennis, with cameras following selected players throughout the current season, which fortuitously began with the Australian Open's Novak Djokovic vaccination saga.

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This activity suggests Netflix is fond of sport – or, at least, fond of cheering on from the sidelines of sport.

For all the entertainment generated by packaging sport into ready-made reality series, there is a hierarchy here, and at the top of it is live action. Netflix hasn’t gone there yet. Shouldn’t it be claiming pole position fast?

Rival strategies

Disney, which owns sports network ESPN, offers a Disney Plus and ESPN Plus bundle to US subscribers. Amazon Prime Video has rights to 20 Premier League matches per season in the UK and tennis rights in the UK and Ireland. HBO Max is now part of the same company, Warner Bros Discovery, as Eurosport. Apple has also dipped a first toe into live sport, streaming Friday Night Baseball on Apple TV Plus in eight countries after striking a deal with Major League Baseball.

To date, Netflix has not exactly been reluctant to spend money. And yet it has shown zero interest in live streaming. With its subscriber tally slipping 200,000 in the first quarter to 221.6 million, the first decline in more than a decade, sticking to this stance could be costly.

The sooner it realises, as viewers and competitors do, that nothing beats the drama of live sport, the sooner it will get those subscriber numbers racing ahead again.