The Match Is No Longer the Beginning of the Journey
The sports industry spends a lot of time discussing how to attract younger audiences. Every conference seems to feature a panel on Gen Z viewing habits. Every strategy document contains a section on fan acquisition. Every rights holder, broadcaster and streaming platform is searching for the next generation of supporters.
Yet despite all this attention, I often feel we are asking the wrong question.
Engaging outside the live match
The assumption behind many of these conversations is that the live match remains the starting point. If we can persuade younger audiences to watch more games, the thinking goes, everything else will follow. More engagement leads to more loyalty, which leads to more subscriptions, merchandise sales and ultimately more valuable fans. I'm increasingly convinced that assumption no longer reflects reality. Not because younger audiences care less about sport.
Quite the opposite. In many ways, they are engaging with sport more frequently than any generation before them. The difference is that for a growing number of fans, the relationship with a sport, team, or athlete begins long before they sit down to watch a live match.
For decades, the journey was relatively simple. You watched a game, became interested in a team, followed the competition, and gradually developed a deeper connection. Everything else existed to support that experience. Highlights, newspapers, magazines, and television analysis all revolved around the live event. The match sat firmly at the centre of the sports media ecosystem. Today that journey often looks very different. A young fan might discover Formula 1 through Drive to Survive before watching a race. They might develop an interest in football through EA Sports FC before following a team. They may spend months consuming clips, creator content and social media conversations before ever watching a full live match. In some cases, they are building genuine relationships with sports through channels that barely existed a decade ago.
Recognising a new pathway to fandom
That is not a threat to sport. In many ways, it is one of the biggest opportunities the industry has ever had. Sport is no longer confined to match day. It can now build relationships with fans every day of the year. The challenge is recognising that the pathway into fandom has changed. This is usually the point where somebody blames attention spans. The argument appears with remarkable consistency. Young people supposedly do not watch sport because they have shorter attention spans. Sport needs to become shorter, faster, and more condensed. Personally, I find that explanation increasingly frustrating because it feels like a convenient way of avoiding more difficult questions.
Young people will happily spend hours gaming. They binge entire television series over a weekend. They watch long-form creator content, listen to podcasts that run for several hours, and follow transfer speculation for weeks. Many spend entire evenings watching streamers, esports competitions, or online communities discussing subjects they care about. Clearly, the ability to concentrate has not disappeared. What has changed is their willingness to invest attention in things they do not find relevant. Young people have not lost their attention. They have developed an incredibly sophisticated filter. The challenge for sport is not overcoming short attention spans. It is earning attention in the first place.
That distinction matters because it shifts responsibility back towards the industry. If we simply blame changing audience behaviour, we avoid asking harder questions. Questions about discoverability. Accessibility. Relevance. Storytelling. Because the uncomfortable truth is that it is often easier to blame attention spans than admit we've made sport harder to find, harder to access and, in some cases, harder to care about. The industry has spent years optimising experiences for people who are already fans. We have built subscription models, apps, content strategies, and broadcast experiences around audiences who already understand the teams, rivalries, and narratives. New fans arrive with none of that context, yet we often expect them to navigate the same journey. That feels like a much bigger challenge than attention span.
Designing new sports experiences around new fan journeys
Many sports organisations still design experiences around existing fans. They assume viewers already understand the teams, the rivalries, the competitions and the significance of the event. Existing fans can navigate that world naturally because they have years of context behind them. Someone discovering a sport through a creator, documentary series, social media clip, or gaming platform has very different needs. They need context. They need storytelling. They need simple entry points. Most importantly, they need a reason to care. This is where I think many sports organisations still have work to do.
The organisations that win the next generation of fans may not necessarily be the ones with the best broadcasts. They may be the ones that create the best journeys. The easiest ways to discover content. The clearest pathways between social media, creators, communities and live events. The strongest stories. The most accessible experiences. Because increasingly, fans are not entering through the same door.
None of this means the live match is becoming less important. Far from it. The match remains the emotional centre of sport. It remains the most valuable asset most sports organisations possess. There is still nothing quite like live sport at its best. But its role is evolving. For a growing number of younger fans, the match is no longer the beginning of the journey. It sits alongside a much broader ecosystem of content, creators, communities and experiences that shape how audiences discover and engage with sport.
The future of fan growth may not depend on getting people to watch more matches. It may depend on recognising that the journey often starts long before the first whistle.