Football season has returned. Advertisers are getting out their checkbooks to court media rights holders, splashing lavish sums for some of the most-watched live television events worldwide.
But for how long will this be the case? While older generations continue to watch live sports in droves, Gen Z isn't tuning in nearly as much. A significant drop in live sports engagement amongst Gen Z viewers has leagues, teams, and media rights holders worried about the future.
A few major factors drive this behavioral shift. A growing culture of instant gratification and shortened attention spans reduces Gen Z's desire to consume live games that regularly last 2-4 hours—especially when 5–10-minute highlight summaries are available right after on social media. Social consumption in general, along with gaming and a plethora of more interactive entertainment options, are gaining a larger slice of the Gen Z leisure time pie at the expense of live sports. And rising ticket costs and pricey TV subscription packages are making live sports less affordable for students and those early in their careers in the first place.
With that said, AlixPartners believes savvy teams, leagues, and media entities can stem the tide and bring Gen Z'ers back into the live sports fold. Through a three-pronged framework—attract, delight, and retain—the industry can foster the next generation of sports fans by adapting marketing and distribution efforts to align with Gen Z's preferences.
Attract: Identify the optimal strategies and channels to reach Gen Z and reignite their interest in live sports
OTT platforms, social media influencers, and video games are the key promotion platforms for a Gen Z audience. Leagues, teams, and media rights holders can utilize the following strategies across each platform to begin nurturing the relationship with potential fans:
Create captivating docuseries on OTT
We could consider this the "Drive to Survive" effect. In 2019, Formula 1 partnered with Netflix to produce this docuseries which has been directly responsible for the resulting explosion in popularity of F1 in new markets and demographics. From 2018 to 2022, F1 average race viewership in the U.S. grew from 500,000 to 1.2 million viewers, per ESPN data—primarily driven by young fans.
Looking to capitalize on the "Drive to Survive" phenomenon, golf, tennis, rugby, and NASCAR have followed suit with their own OTT docuseries that take fans behind the scenes and into the personal lives of athletes. By focusing on high-quality storytelling and drama, Gen Z viewers are more likely to see these series as parallel offerings to other shows on the OTT platforms they frequent. And by emotionally connecting to the characters, while learning the rules of each sport, they're more likely to tune into the sports themselves.
Engage with social media influencers
Influencer-led, user-generated content has become the favored consumption form for Gen Z. Sports that leading influencers promote daily or weekly have witnessed a surge in their popularity from a Gen Z audience, chief among them boxing. After two decades of decline, the rise of influencer boxing since 2018—led by influencers-turned-fighters including Jake Paul and KSI—has revived the sport's popularity with younger viewers, allowing established fighters and promoters to reap the benefits.
Leagues, teams, and media rights holders should engage with key influencers by demographic segment, partnering on sponsored posts.
Integrate with eSports and gaming culture
88% of Gen Z'ers play video games, compared to 55% of older generations, per a Visual Capitalist survey. The study also found that young people who play EA Sports FC are 18% more likely to buy a global football match ticket and 21% more likely to pay for a TV subscription to watch the live action.
As such, it's critical to work with leading video games to target potential fans across age groups. In 2023, Wimbledon launched a new experience on Fortnite to promote the tournament among teenagers. "If the first thing they're switching on is their PlayStation," said Usama Al-Qassab, marketing director for the All England Club, "you've got to be able to interact with that first and use that as an on ramp."
Delight: Tailor live sports offerings on TV and in stadiums to ensure an unmatched experience for Gen Z
We see three key levers sports entities can pull to enhance the live experience for Gen Z both on screen and in stadiums:
Promote conversation and fan interaction
Half of Gen Z sports fans say they use social media to interact with others during games. It's crucial that sports entities create online platforms that allow for socialization and connection, and ensure easy accessibility of these platforms during live games to amplify viewership and engagement.
Leading OTT platform DAZN, for example, created a Watch Party feature that allows subscribers to watch live events together in a video-chat setting. This way, friends and family can seamlessly co-view games when not together in person. Watch Party synchronizes the DAZN stream for each participant to ensure everyone is watching at the same point.
Speed up play and maximize action
Gen Z'ers have shorter attention spans than older generations. This necessitates that sports leagues minimize slow play and maximize action as best they can.
Two of the notoriously slower sports worldwide have implemented rule changes and created new competition formats to ignite interest among younger viewers. Baseball introduced a pitch clock in 2023, which led to a boost in offensive production, the most stolen bases in nearly 40 years, and games on average 24 minutes shorter. Cricket, meanwhile, introduced the Twenty20 format in 2003, wherein matches take around 2.5 hours start-to-finish as opposed to other cricket formats that take days to complete. Twenty20 cricket generated a combined $6.2 billion in television rights in 2022, a year in which the T20 World Cup reached more than 6.6 billion views across ICC platforms—a 65% increase in digital engagement compared to the previous year's tournament.
Create immersive experiences through digitization
Technological advances allow teams, leagues, and media holders to revolutionize the viewing experience through new digital features both on-screen (camera angles, stat overlays, etc.) and in-stadium (AR effects, holograms, etc.).
Sky Sports has innovated the on-screen experience through its "Game Mode," which allows viewers to watch English Premier League matches with video game camera angles, as well as F1 broadcasts that let viewers toggle between the different drivers to watch the race from their cockpits. In stadium, the New York Islanders launched Isles+ this past season, a new digital platform that lets game attendees watch the action on their phone from four camera angles at once, chat with fellow fans in the building, vote on songs played in the arena, and more.
Retain: Foster long-term commitment and loyalty through engagement beyond match-day events
It's critical to engage with Gen Z beyond the boundaries of live events to generate loyalty. To do so, leagues, teams, and sports media organizations can:
Establish an omni-channel media presence
TV, social media, video games, and additional outlets require distinct types of content to best engage with viewers. Sports entities must allocate resources for content creation and curation across each of these platforms to reach Gen Z'ers, and ensure the content is accessible and mobile-friendly (i.e., filming vertically so videos are tailored for mobile consumption). Short-form videos and highlight packages perform particularly well.
World Wrestling Entertainment, or WWE, has used social and other digital media channels to foster a strong follower base of passionate, loyal Gen Z fans. Its successful engagement strategy, focusing on star athletes and storylines, has helped WWE accrue more than 100 million YouTube subscribers and more than 25 and 30 million TikTok and Instagram followers, respectively.
Elevate storytelling beyond the game
Gen Z'ers desire deeper narratives than the surface-level drama of live sports. They value raw, unfiltered experiences, hence the appeal of series like "Drive to Survive" that provide direct access to athletes' lives.
The UFC nails this trend with its "UFC Embedded" series. In the lead-up to every major UFC event, the fighting championship releases a four-part docuseries of 20-minute episodes on YouTube, providing fans with a closer look at the participating fighters' lives and training routines. These episodes are released in the build-up to fight night, enticing viewers to pay and see the action once the fight arrives. The NFL also succeeds here with its "Hard Knocks" series, produced by HBO and streamed on Max. In-depth storytelling takes viewers into the intricacies of a particular franchise's offseason and training camp, with a focus on highlighting player personalities.
Champion Gen Z values
Gen Z cares much more about brand and individual stances on issues like environmental sustainability and social justice than older generations. As such, it's crucial for sports entities to align with their values to build loyalty. Integrating diversity and inclusivity into brand messaging, while supporting relevant social and environmental causes and initiatives, will go a long way to connecting with the cohort—as long as it's done genuinely. Gen Z'ers are skeptical of the authenticity of brand efforts here, with high sensitivity to greenwashing.
The WNBA has struck a chord with Gen Z around these topics, as
the league has been highly active in promoting social justice
initiatives around race and gender through league-wide campaigns
and supporting players who speak up. WNBA fandom continues to soar,
reaching an all-time high during this 2024 season.
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