Media giants rely on sports while Hollywood strikes continue to loom over the content boards

Last year, media giants relied on sports to woo advertisers during Upfronts week at a time when Hollywood was hitting back and cutting costs, affecting their content and star power.

This year, although stars returned to the stages after the strikes ended, the presentations were still based more on sports than on scripted shows.

The hangover from last year’s shutdown meant some media companies had fewer series and films to showcase during their presentations. Cost cutting in companies, incl Disney AND Warner Bros. Discovery did not facilitate.

Live sports remain the favorite at Upfront events and continue to attract the largest audiences and, therefore, the most advertising dollars.

“I think [the companies] they benefited in terms of earnings during the strike. “I think we were hesitant to escalate volume because of all the issues around trying to understand how content spend really impacts returns,” said Tom Rogers, executive chairman of Oorbit Gaming and Entertainment and former president of NBC Cable.

“There used to be this kind of slot where they released a certain number of shows for a recent season and it was relatively formulaic, without much of a sense of understanding how content drives profitability,” he added.

He highlighted two key issues for conventional media companies: the decline of conventional television and the rising fees companies must pay to broadcast live sports events.

“If you’re going to maintain a reduced level of content spending, by definition that means you have to reduce the amount of entertainment programming,” Rogers said.

Disney released trailers for upcoming Disney+ series “Agatha All Along” and “Daredevil: Born Again,” but for its cable network FX, it only showed off the next season of its popular series “The Bear,” which is also streaming on Hulu. The company also announced “Golden Bachelorette” – another installment of the popular reality show broadcast on ABC.

Warner Bros. Discovery has put series like “House of the Dragon” and “And Just Like That” – both spinoffs of the HBO series – at the forefront.

“However, a affluent offering of content – ​​whether sports or entertainment – ​​is only one piece of the puzzle,” said Amy Leifer, director of ad sales at DIRECTV Advertising. “With exponential growth [ad-supported streaming]“The newfangled television experience is as much about the content as it is about the advertising that supports it.”

Some movies played a huge role in the Upfronts, especially after streaming services like NBCUniversal’s Peacock recently got a boost from blockbusters like “Oppenheimer.”

ComcastNBCUniversal has set its sights on the upcoming musical film “Wicked” and renewing some of its Peacock original series.

The summer movie box office season, which runs from the first weekend of May through Labor Day, is expected to shrink by about $800 million this year as the season brings a confined and volatile stream of blockbusters. It follows a second quarter that was almost 50% worse than ticket sales recorded during the same period last year.

The film calendar is expected to expand in the fourth quarter to include major titles such as Warner Bros. “Joker: Folie a Deux,” Paramount’s “Gladiator II,” Disney Animation’s “Moana 2” and Universal’s “Wicked” will all hit theaters. The 2025 and 2026 Calendar is expected to see a significant escalate in titles, including films from major franchises such as Marvel, Star Wars, Batman, Super Mario Bros., as well as tickets from the third Avatar film.

Meanwhile, tech giants like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, which recently added cheaper ad-supported tiers to its streaming platforms, entered Upfronts week in full force, showcasing not only sports events but also upcoming movies and series.

Amazon, which currently owns MGM Studios, has seen renewals and upcoming seasons of original series such as “Mr. & Mrs. Smith,” “The Boys” and “The Summer I Turned Pretty.” Actor Jake Gyllenhaal announced the “Roadhouse” sequel, and Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon discussed their film “You’re Cordially Invited.”

Meanwhile, Netflix has announced a sequel to Adam Sandler’s Joyful Gilmore, as well as a number of other series.

This year, the NFL dominated most of the Upfront presentations once again.

Sports programming, from the Summer Olympics to the NBA, was also a key part of the presentation, attracting the largest television and streaming audiences and huge sums of advertising dollars.

“We often hear from top customers that the importance of upfront purchases has diminished beyond securing seats on live sports,” said Mike Dupree, chief revenue officer at Teads, a global premium publishing platform. “Access to high-quality content in an on-demand world has reduced the scarcity that has historically driven the startup model. Live sports appear to be the last bastion, as rights renegotiations have proven.”

NBCUniversal devoted a significant part of its presentation to the upcoming Summer Olympics in Paris. The NFL played a role in all presentations, including its newcomer to the ad-supported streaming environment, Netflix. It generated perhaps the biggest sports buzz during Upfronts week when, hours before the presentation, it was announced that an agreement had been reached to air NFL games on Christmas Day for the next three years.

Amazon unveiled Thursday Night Football, its second Black Friday game, and incoming January wild-card playoff game – a first in Prime history.

“This year, we saw media giants make huge bets like ‘Wicked’ and the Olympics, and sports superstars like Jason Kelce create buzz,” said Tim Hurd, vice president of media activation at the digital marketing agency Goodway Group. “There was a lot of excitement around the evolving live sports landscape and the operate of college sports, NFL games and the Olympics as a cross-platform experience.”

Kelce, who recently retired from the NFL after 13 years with the Philadelphia Eagles, appeared on the Disney front to announce that he will be an ESPN commentator starting this season. His appearance made headlines – something he and his brother Travis Kelce have a penchant for doing – when he picked up star and “Abbott Elementary” creator Quinta Brunson at the event.

—Sarah Whitten contributed to this article.

Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC.