Sports fans are increasingly turning to highlights and video on social media if they’re unable to watch sport in real-time, a new report from strategic consultancy Altman Solon reveals.
The company’s 2022 Global Sports Survey spoke to sports fans across 17 countries.
It found that while traditional methods of watching sports – live on pay-TV or through streaming/OTT – are resilient, a large group of global fans are forgoing watching live events for game recaps, highlights, and clips on social media.
In nearly every country, “live games” was selected as the most frequently consumed sports content on a daily or weekly basis, but watching game clips on social media was a close second.
Finding a way to balance serving the traditional fanbase while attracting new demographics of fans who prefer more short-form, “snackable” sports content will be critical to competing in the new sports marketplace, said the report.
In the UK, almost as many fans are watching sport live as are watching highlights, in Germany that figure reverses, with more watching highlights.
The report adds that in nearly every survey market, at least one quarter of global sports fans are watching more sports content than they did in 2020, with a similar percentage watching more live sports.
But other survey findings point to the different ways fans are consuming content, with sizeable groups – 27 per cent in the United States and 20 per cent in the U.K. – preferring to watch video highlights of the game than watching the match itself.
The survey identified innovations that are transforming how sports fans consume content. It found strong interest in using virtual reality technology to interact with sports content at home, as owners of VR headsets are consuming sports VR content at a high rate. The US and Japan had the highest levels of interest in using VR for sports, with more than two-thirds of US headset owners interested in watching live games in VR. Other popular VR uses include watching live games as if inside the arena and experiencing live action from a player’s point of view.
Full details of the report are available here.
