Live sports deliver top streaming growth moments in 2025, Ampere reports

Netflix’s Christmas Day broadcast of NFL in 2025 drove the streaming platform’s largest U.S. sign-up surge of the year, according to research published by Ampere Analysis.

The event, along with the release of the final episodes of “Stranger Things,” generated 430,000 new subscribers in the United States. This marked the third-largest U.S. sign-up spike for Netflix since 2018, trailing only its 2024 Christmas GameDay and its first live event, the Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson boxing match.

Ampere Analysis identified live sports and event programming as the dominant driver of subscription video-on-demand (SVoD) growth in the United States in 2025.

Live events were responsible for 60 percent of the most significant sign-up peaks across platforms including Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, Hulu, Paramount+ and Max. Promotional activity accounted for about 30 percent, while scripted releases made up only 10 percent. Nearly all of the latter were associated with Netflix, with the exception of “1923” Season 2 on Paramount+.

“Live programming is no longer a complementary strategy for streaming services, but one of the most reliable tools for subscriber growth,” said Mayssa Jamil, senior analyst at Ampere Analysis. “It is able to bring large audiences together at once, create immediate scale and significantly increase the value of ad inventory.”

Ampere found that sports accounted for 85 percent of live-driven sign-ups, with the remainder linked to award shows. The company’s U.S. SVoD Economics data also showed lasting engagement: 45 percent of viewers who subscribed for Netflix’s first Christmas GameDay in 2024 remained active a year later, and 10 percent of churned subscribers returned specifically for the 2025 event.

Live content also helped expand reach in a saturated market. Nearly half of sign-ups during live events in 2025 came from first-time subscribers, according to the study.

Sign-ups during live events also correlated with higher ad-supported tier selection. Ampere reported that 75 percent of new users on Amazon Prime Video and Paramount+, and 50 percent on Netflix, selected ad tiers during live broadcasts. Because live sports typically include advertising across all tiers, these sign-ups led to increased ad exposure and broader monetization opportunities.

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Ampere Analysis sourced its data from a panel of anonymized email users provided by YipitData. The firm tracks streaming metrics including sign-ups, churn and retention in the United States and United Kingdom.