Streaming for Whom? Exploring the Audience Composition and Perceptions of Niche Sport Streams

Abstract

The proliferation of over-the-top streaming platforms has enabled non-mainstream sports to bypass traditional broadcast gatekeepers and distribute their content directly to audiences. Whether this practice delivers meaningful value, however, remains largely unexamined, and the audiences it reaches are themselves poorly understood. This study explores the audience composition and broadcast perceptions associated with livestreamed non-mainstream sport through a case study of the Australian Water Polo League. Survey data from verified viewers (n = 77) reveal a structurally bounded audience constituted by sport-embedded insiders whose engagement is relationally driven and best understood through social identity rather than media preference. The broadcast was perceived positively within its own contextual frame of reference and functioned as an effective signal of organisational legitimacy. The findings nonetheless offer disconfirming evidence against assumptions underpinning the case for streaming in non-mainstream sport: that streaming provision itself generates new viewership beyond the participant base, and that incremental production sophistication yields proportionate perceptual returns. While the study’s small sample constrains inferential generalisability, the findings provide an exploratory basis for audience-centred research on non-mainstream sport streaming.