The Challenges Faced by Viaplay in Sports Rights Acquisition and Revenue Generation

Viaplay’s challenges could mean changing channels for sports rights, media expert predicts.

– It is clear that this is a serious situation for Viaplay. It will be interesting to see how they solve this in terms of costs. I think they are facing tough times. The media market is currently struggling, with stagnation premium incomepremium incomerevenue from subscribers and advertising revenues which fall significantly, says Lasse Gimnes, media expert at Gimcom.

The Viaplay share fell around 60 percent on Monday morning on the Stockholm stock exchange. The reason was that Viaplay dampened expectations for their result in 2023. The company envisages a negative operating result of up to SEK 1.5 billion.

Viaplay points to a decline in the advertising market and lower demand from subscribers. The plan to cut costs has gone slower than expected.

Among Viaplay’s biggest rights in Norway are the Premier League until 2028, large parts of the World Cup in winter sports until 2026 and Formula 1 until 2024. Viaplay also has the handball World Cup, the FA Cup and the German Bundesliga.

Erling Braut Haaland can still be seen on Viaplay:

– Viaplay has been a winner in the sports rights market in recent years. I will not be surprised if they sell some of the rights in the future. Not least the rights for winter sports can quickly be sold. Type NRK and TV 2 could be potential buyers, says Gimnes, who is an adviser to Johannes Høsflot Klæbo and Karsten Warholm.

Last year, Viaplay agreed with NRK to share the rights from the World Ski Championships in 2023 and 2025. Viaplay also ended up sharing the rights to this summer’s soccer World Cup for women with the state channel.

NTNU professor Harry Arne Solberg, an expert on sports and economics, believes that Viaplay is also losing large amounts of revenue due to illegal streaming.

– One thing they struggle with is pirate viewing. It is quite common. I think that is an important reason, says Solberg.

– Do you think Viaplay may have to sell off rights?

– It is a possibility. It depends on how red the numbers are, which only the bosses know. It is known that they struggle a little to succeed in skiing, but that is just speculation.

Viaplay has some of the most popular sports rights in Sweden, Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands. They have also invested in the UK.

Mikael Olsson, analyst in Today’s Industrywonders whether Viaplay will invest more internationally in the future or concentrate on the Nordic region.

– Nothing is going as they had hoped, says Olsson.

Lasse Gimnes points out that Viaplay is not alone in challenging times, but that the entire media market is struggling with advertising revenue this year.

– The outlook for the markets in which we operate has changed significantly and at a rapid pace, and the implementation of the cost program has not mitigated the effects of these conditions to a sufficient extent. The impact of the macroeconomic headwinds on the business requires us to execute our strategy differently, says Viaplay chairman Pernille Erenbjerg in a press release.

VG and Viaplay has an editorial and commercial collaboration.