Over time there has been a fundamental shift in the way fans engage with sports. Two core factors can be attributed to this shift, globalisation and rapid digitization. The world of sports is now as global as it is local. What happens on the pitch in London affects almost instantaneously to the fan in faraway Indonesia or the remote corners in Africa. That’s where digitization comes in allowing the fan to know about every sporting or non-sporting developments of their clubs. This is not just on the matchday but actions beyond the 90 minutes too.
Welcome the connected fan and to the era of modern fan engagement.
What connects the clubs with the fans? Content! It is now a more consuming, structured and calculated process of developing, distributing and scheduling content, all for keeping the fan connected to the club. What once was limited to stadium events is now a round-the-clock business. The fact is fans are consuming content voraciously and demanding even more.
In today’s blog, we take a look at the digital media and content part of the football industry.
Impact of Social Media
The rise of internet connectivity has been a game changer for the sports industry. News, opinions, highlights traveled instantaneously, far and wide. With social media, a whole new level of fan engagement began. For clubs, athletes, sponsors, rights holders, social media platforms were the fastest and easiest way to pass a message across. They could also reach newer territories and develop & connect with fans from those areas. Fans began to love it and felt closer to their favourite athlete or club. Thus, the communication structure began to change and it became more demanding with passage of time.
Today, a fan wants to know about every decision, both on & off the field. He wants to be involved in it. The change also happened in the way content was shared. From simple text-led content over Orkut to a more involved, visual-led content, the platforms have also evolved, resulting in the phenomenal growth of TikTok or Instagram. A study of the social media fan following of the 25 most followed football clubs between Oct 2021 to Oct 2024 gave interesting results. Platforms used for the study are primary English channels clubs in Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, X (formerly Twitter) and TikTok.
The rapid integration of social media and sports led to developing and creating specialised content, each meant for a particular social media platform. Like TikTok which specializes in short-form content or X (formerly Twitter) for live updates or YouTube for long-form content, Facebook for demographic-specific content and so on. Content is now a very serious business and so are the strategies behind creating and distributing them.
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Business of Content Creation
The ever increasing demand for content has led to two associated developments. One has been termed as ‘creator economy’ and with it, the second development is, football clubs going on to form & run studios of their own with the aim of getting a better control on the content production and distribution and at the same time, gather fan data or in other words, as much information on fans as possible.
Creator economy is a growing field of people who make money by leveraging their creative talents, typically using digital platforms to connect with their audiences. According to a Goldman Sachs research, the creator economy could be worth $480bn by 2027! In the sports business, even athletes are increasingly viewing this medium as a parallel avenue to leverage and monetize their ‘sporting brand persona’.
On the other side, football clubs too have realised the importance of owning and understand fan data. For far too long and with good results too, clubs relied on social media platforms to distribute content and brand message. Unfortunately, the fan data absorbing these contents are owned by the platforms. The clubs have now begun to understand how independently owned channels can become fan data minefield as well as a revenue generation source. A good example is FC Barcelona launched a subscription driven streaming service called Barca TV+ which capture more fan data feed into the customer relationship management system the club is quietly building in the background. Similarly, Juventus launched Juventus Creator Laba state-of-the-art studio dedicated to create and impart innovative storytelling.
There are other clubs too who have already ventured here and for the rest, it is only a matter of time!
In Conclusion
The business of sports content is developing day-by-day. Football clubs, a majority of which are still led by outdated strategies, will have to adapt rapidly in order to create new revenue streams and understand fans better to strengthen their sponsorship strategies. The challenge is big and so are the opportunities.
It is destined to become an exciting space to watch out for in the near future
