Netflix is considering investing in sports leagues and bidding for streaming rights of events.

CTOnews.com, Nov. 9 (Xinhua)-- according to the Wall Street Journal, Netflix is actively considering providing live sports on its platform, as long as it doesn't cost too much.

Netflix recently bid for the streaming rights of the Men's Professional Tennis Association (ATP) in some European countries such as France and the UK, but eventually abandoned the bid, according to one of the people familiar with the matter. At the same time, Netflix discussed bidding for a range of other events, including the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) and the broadcasting rights of cycling races in the UK.

In addition, people familiar with the matter say they avoid the rising cost of bidding for broadcast rights to sporting events, and Netflix executives have discussed buying lesser-known sports leagues. At the end of last year, Netflix held talks to buy World Surfing Federation (World Surf League), but the talks broke down because the two sides could not agree on a price.

CTOnews.com learned that financial data showed that Netflix's third-quarter revenue was $7.926 billion, up 5.9 per cent from a year earlier, while net profit was $1.398 billion, down 3.5 per cent from a year earlier. In the third quarter, the total number of paying users of Netflix's global streaming service reached 223.09 million, up 4.5 per cent from a year earlier.