Paris Olympics prompt record number of sports doc commissions – Ampere Analysis
Daley Thompson doc Daley: Olympic Superstar from the BBC
The number of sports-themed documentaries broadcast in the run-up to the Paris Olympics reached record numbers, UK research firm Ampere Analysis has revealed.
In total, 103 new sports-themed factual titles were released between May and July this year, including the BBC’s 102-minute feature doc Daley: Olympic Superstar, about gold medal-winning British decathlete Daley Thompson.
The last time similar commissioning levels were recorded was in the run-up to the 2022 Fifa World Cup football tournament in Qatar, when 109 documentaries were aired in the three months to November 2022.
However, that was during a time of higher overall commissioning volumes. Within the context of lower content greenlights, the sports docs released in July 2024 represent 25% of all new factual titles released globally during the month – a record share.
Ampere said its data indicates the industry has reached a new “high watermark” for factual sports programming, which has grown its share of first-run releases from 6% in 2020 to 9% in 2022 and 12% so far in 2024.
European public broadcasters, led by France Télévisions and the BBC, released the highest volume of new sports docs from May to July.
In contrast, the Olympics featured less prominently in global streamers’ new factual premieres, with VoD platforms continuing to prioritise topics that appeal to broader international subscriber bases.
In addition to documentary orders, pubcasters also greenlit several sports-themed entertainment and reality formats. That pushed sports content to a record 17% share of all new unscripted commissions released in July.
Cyrine Amor, senior analyst at Ampere Analysis, said: “Content producers had prepared in earnest for the spike in interest in sport of all kinds that the Olympics produces.
“This year there’s been a huge increase in the number of sports documentaries, docuseries, reality and entertainment programming. Unusually, public broadcasters created more of this material than the global streamers.
“Sports fans have enjoyed a true summer of sport and documentary creators have turned July 2024 into a record month for global releases.”
