The smartest sports businesses are building beyond spectatorship |
The sports business has spent the last few years focused on premium live rights, and for good reason: The biggest leagues still anchor the market, command the largest media deals and remain the center of gravity for sponsors, distributors and, ultimately, fans.
But the next layer of growth is coming from a wider set of behaviors than the industry has traditionally measured.
That is the shift sports executives need to pay attention to now. The old model assumed fandom started with watching: Audiences tuned in, cheered on specific teams and then, over time, spent more. This still matters. But increasingly, sports consumers, especially younger ones, are entering the ecosystem in different ways — by playing, joining communities, following creator-driven content or engaging with sports as part of a broader lifestyle.
That changes how value gets built.
The sports funnel is no longer linear
Findings from the EY US Sports Engagement Index, which surveyed 3,746 U.S. adults about their engagement across more than 100 sports, shows just how broad the sports ecosystem has become. Eighty-six percent of respondents said they engaged in sports over the past year, meaning engagement is expanding well beyond traditional spectatorship.
This matters because the industry still tends to separate watching from playing. But consumers do not. A........