Sports rights were once a guaranteed driver of pay-TV subscriptions, but a broader shift in the media landscape has seen sports leagues experimenting with direct access to consumers
Football, arguably Southeast Asia’s most popular sport, is no exception. The English Premier League (EPL) has announced that it will be launching its first direct-to-consumer (DTC) streaming service, Premier League Plus, for the 2026/27 season, in Singapore.
Does the EPL’s latest move represent yet another disruption to traditional broadcast models and how can rights holders and media partners adapt?
Even as consumers continue to cut the cord, live sports remain a valuable subscription driver, particularly for pay-TV operators, where sports are key to subscriber retention, said Daniel Harraghy, Senior Research Manager, Ampere Sports.
He told APB+, “Ampere’s survey data highlights that 43% of sports fans agree that live sports is the only thing keeping them from unsubscribing to their pay-TV subscription, highlighting the value that rights can bring to broadcasters.
“However, with traditional TV players facing revenue headwinds and streamers yet to consistently make live sports profitable, we are seeing major rights-holders testing new strategies to mitigate slowing rights value growth in a shifting media landscape — the EPL’s DTC launch in Singapore is reflective of this.”
For StarHub, the EPL’s official broadcaster in Singapore until the 2027/28 season, the launch of Premier League Plus represents an opportunity to further enhance the viewing experience of sports fans in Singapore.
A StarHub spokesperson told APB+, “StarHub recognises that fans today expect richer, more immersive ways to experience the Premier League. As a hybrid broadcast and over-the-top (OTT) platform since the launch of StarHub+ in 2020, we have continuously evolved our offering to bring fans closer to the action.
“The introduction of Premier League Plus complements our existing coverage and enhances the overall experience available to fans on StarHub’s platforms.”
StarHub described Premier League Plus as a “collaborative trial” with the EPL, adding that there will be no changes to its current Premier League packages, although no details on pricing or timelines have been announced for Premier League Plus.
“This collaboration reflects our shared commitment to putting fans first — delivering the quality, innovation, and viewing experience our customers expect from StarHub,” the spokesperson added.
Yet beyond the collaborative framing, the EPL’s Singapore trial underscores the wider economic pressures facing broadcasters and the need for rights-holders to explore new ways of sustaining rights value growth.
Excluding China, Ampere’s data suggests that traditional TV industry revenues in the Asia-Pacific region have fallen by 2.5% between 2019 and 2025. This, said Harraghy, will have a knock-on effect on the budgets of linear TV players looking to acquire sports rights.
He added, “As such, leagues have a couple of options to ignite growth. One strategy they can employ is to be innovative in the way they package rights to attract streamers to the rights auction and re-ignite competition. A recent example of this is Netflix acquiring the rights to the 2026 World Baseball Classic in Japan.
“Alternatively, leagues can develop their own DTC platforms as the EPL is doing, allowing them to more directly monetise EPL fans and bring audiences into their own ecosystem.”
For traditional broadcasters, the good news is that leagues face a significant economic challenge in balancing the loss of media rights income against the costs of launching DTC platforms.
The EPL, Harraghy noted, generates over US$900 million from broadcasters across the Asia-Pacific region. “To drop its broadcast partners and go direct, the EPL would have a substantial job to generate the same level of income from its own platform, especially when factoring in the additional costs of production.”
This opens the door for deeper collaborations with APAC broadcasters, giving them more time to rethink long-term strategies for engaging the region’s growing base of sports fans.
“Striking a balance between developing the DTC product and working with existing broadcast partners will be key in the early stages of this strategy,” Harraghy concluded.
