Sports as a product is feeling the squeeze of the peak attention economy. Sports fans in the traditional sense are ageing, and appealing to a younger digitally-native audience is a fundamental issue that rights holders can no longer ignore. Sports rights holders have realised the importance of their virtual (gaming) counterparts, acknowledging that they are taking much of the attention of a large proportion of their fanbases, but also nurturing expected future fans who do not interact with the real-life version of sports. Key to this dynamic is the current spread of distribution deals—which makes viewing fragmented and expensive for fans, due to rights holders’ legacy approach to award rights to the highest bidder regardless of reach. Sports are rapidly losing future fans to e-sports and gaming in general – now is the time for traditional sports to fight back.

Companies and brands mentioned in this report: ABC, Amazon, Amazon Prime Video, Coupe de la Ligue, DAZN, Disney, Disney+, English Premier League, ESPN, ESPN+, FIFA, FIFA, Hulu, La Liga, Madden NFL, Major League Baseball, National Basketball Association, National Football League, National Hockey League, NBA            NBA            League, Pro Evolution Soccer, Take Two Interactive, Tencent, Thursday Night Football, TNT, Twitch, WWE, YouTube