CURRENT CHALLENGES THAT SPORT FACES TO STAY RELEVANT WITH A YOUNGER AUDIENCE
February 18, 2022
By Tim Button
With half-term approaching it got me thinking back to what I used to spend most of my time on during the holidays. For me it was simple – I was sports mad! Be it football (full on matches in the street or headers & volleys), cricket (using a lamp post for the stumps and six and out if the ball went into someone’s garden) or athletics (creating our own versions of the different running and jumping events from the decathlon)! At Netfluential we work with a variety of clients from the sporting world (be that governing bodies or rights holders) so it got me thinking about how important is sport in the lives of young people today and what can sport organisations or rights holders do to encourage more young people to take part in/ or follow sport?
There are lots of things to keep young people occupied - sport must work hard to grab time and attention
Nowadays there are far more things to keep young people occupied than in the past which means that sport has a big job on its hands to try and grab people’s time and attention. Indeed, recent research has shown that sport does not feature in the top areas of interest amongst 11-18 year olds. It trails in significantly behind categories such as music, gaming, social media and film & television – these categories are also identified as being high frequency and long duration.
Parents play a key role in introducing and taking their children to sport
Looking at how people first become involved with sport highlights that across most sports it’s the playing of that sport at school or watching it on TV with parents that really introduces them to it. This highlights that sports engagement (certainly early on in life) is heavily influenced by parents (it’s no co-incidence that my 7-year-old daughter enjoys playing football for her team every Saturday morning!). If we look at the reasons behind continuing to play a sport, we see that it being fun and good exercise are key for many. In-line with this people tend to stop playing a sport when it becomes less fun for them or when they can no longer dedicate the time to playing. This time element is more critical in certain sports than others – for example, cricket and golf can take several hours to play meaning that younger people simply do not have the time or interest to be engaged for that long. This could lead to long-term decline in interest in the sport if certain issues are not addressed.
Watching full event live action is becoming less important for younger people
In terms of how younger fans are currently watching/ consuming sport we see that watching the live action is less important for them than their older counterparts. They are more interested in watching other videos about the sport and prefer to follow it via social media – TV is less relevant. Even when this younger group do watch games/ matches live they are also likely to be doing other things at the same time and they will also watch via a variety of devices as opposed to relying on traditional TV. Further evidence of the important role that parents/ family members play is seen with ‘parents/ family members getting me tickets’ being cited as the key reason for attending live matches (more so than wanting to actually experience the event in person themselves).
Outside of football, we see that simply participating in a sport does not necessarily equate to having an interest in following it which clearly has implications for sporting teams, media companies and bodies who all rely on attendance/ followings to prosper. How can they make it so that younger people want to take that extra step and actively follow or attend matches/ events?
Shortening the event can help drive interest and engagement
With young people either stopping playing or following a sport when it’s less fun or when they have less time to follow it, the relevant sporting governing bodies need to look at ways of removing the perceived ‘lack of action’ moments and lengthy match time barriers, to make the sport more exciting. Younger sporting fans in general no longer want to spend several hours watching an event. If we think of cricket, T20 has revolutionised the sport and has opened up the game for a new generation. Following on from this we saw the introduction of The Hundred last season which was a new shorter format running during the summer school holiday period – aimed to bring in a younger audience into the game. Golf dipped its toe in the water with the Golf Sixes events. F1 introduced sprint races last year (and has a further 3 planned for 2022) and tennis has shortened matches and introduced the shot clock.
There’s more to the sport than the actual action
In terms of what younger fans want to see then there is significant growth in demand for more interviews with players and personalities along with behind-the-scenes footage. Young sports fans are just as interested in behind the scenes footage as the actual coverage itself at times. There is a strong desire to see what it’s like to be a star-athlete and what their daily life entails. For example, the Amazon Prime All or Nothing series of documentaries (several NFL teams along with Man City, Spurs and the All Blacks) along with Netflix’s Sunderland ‘Till I Die and Formula 1 Drive to Survive series have all been very well received. Continuing to offer fly in wall type documentaries will help drive interest in the teams and in-turn the sports themselves.
If you would be interested in gaining a better understanding of your sporting target and help drive increased participation for your sport, then please do let us know.
Tim@netfluential.com