The importance of understanding fans

This excerpt is taken from our latest whitepaper - The fan data revolution: How sports teams can crack the fan identity challenge - launched in partnership with SportBusiness. Read it in full here.

Even the world’s most commercially successful outfits have no idea who the vast majority of their followers are, and they face an immense challenge in identifying – let alone understanding – more than a fraction of their sprawling fanbase.

To underline the scale of the task facing many professional clubs, when FC Barcelona’s high-profile sponsorship deal with Spotify was unveiled in 2022, it was reported that the Catalan giants held the details of just 1% of its estimated 350 million fans worldwide.01

Such a situation is far from unique, though, with fans typically flying under the radar of the team they love.

However, as teams seek to build stronger relationships with fans and monetise new and existing followers, the stakes are getting higher, especially with emerging generations of sports enthusiasts set to be vital to the financial sustainability of enterprises up and down the sporting pyramid.

Gen Z, born between 1997 and 2012, will offer unprecedented value to teams given their relative wealth to other age categories; and there is no time to lose in understanding them, as well as the broader sports audience.02

Individuals who become ‘fans’ by the age of 14 are significantly more valuable than those who grow to love a team later in life. Fans who start following sports by age 14 spend 88% more on sports compared to those who become fans later in life.03 They also spend 8.5hrs per day on their devices – expanding their data trail.04

However, as teams endeavour to navigate a fragmented media landscape, fans’ digital footprints are typically imprinted on third-party platforms.

For instance, more than 90% of Gen Z fans use social media to consume sports content such as game coverage and interviews.05 Accordingly, from a team’s perspective, valuable first-party fan data remains frustratingly out of reach.

Therefore, the challenge is to create tailored and compelling content on team-owned platforms to engage followers and collect first-party data to fuel evermore personalised fan experiences.

For proactive teams that are ready to explore engagement strategies such as gamification, there are significant opportunities to tap into valuable fans. After all, 70% of people under 25 prefer spending time playing games rather than watching videos.06

“By investing in their owned digital content, teams can tap into an enormous social, casual and extended fan base and unlock the power of first-party data to drive long-term revenue growth.” Josh Linforth , Chief Revenue Officer, Genius Sports.

01 ‘Spotify y la base de datos del Barça’ (Sport, 2022). 02 ‘Generation Z is unprecedentedly rich’ (The Economist, 2024). 03 ‘Fans made by 14 are healthier, more sociable and more engaged’ (SportBusiness, 2023). 04 ‘Teens are spending the equivalent of a 40-hour work week on their devices. Here’s how to help them find the right balance’ (Fortune, 2023) 05 ‘2023 sports fan insights: The beginning of the immersive sports era’ (Deloitte, 2023). 06 ‘Mind the Gap’ (McKinsey & Company, 2022).