99SYN14528_SocialSportsFanDoc-V2

The younger the sports fan, the greater the effect
social media has on their fanship
22-25yrs
17%
18-21yrs
34%
“The thing I think Cross Fit does very
well with social media is that they are
very quick to pick up the athletes,
and give them a chance to shine so
you can share and experience that.
– John, Cross Fit athlete.
“
16-17
18-21
22-25
16-17yrs
49%
1.2 Social grows fanship…
fanship grows social
Our findings point to a symbiotic relationship between sports fanship and social media usage,
at least amongst the younger members of the Millennial demographic. The more they use
social media to engage with their passions, the more of a fan they become… and
the more of a fan they become, the more they use social to feed that fanship.
This should encourage brands and rights holders to think of socially supercharged sponsorship
as not only a great way to engage with consumers now, but to nurture them for the future:
content is an investment in growing a hungrier consumer.
Sponsorship is typically a long-term game, with a multi-year calendar built around a season or
the build-up to a big event. This gives a brand time to nurture an audience that seems to naturally
grow through social.
But where are these fans gathering and growing?
In order to understand the effect of social media on
fanship, we asked participants whether they were a
bigger fan of the sports/teams/athletes they liked
because of social media. 49% of 16-17 year-olds
agreed that they were, compared to 40% of 18-21
year-olds and only 28% of those in the 22-25 bracket.
This suggests that the younger the fan, the more social
media affects their level of fanship. This poses interesting
questions: is this age skew because those 18-21 yearolds
are too young to have ever really been consciously
interested in sports like rugby, football or tennis without
the facilitation of social media?
Face-to-face interviews with sports fans offered up
another possibility. Cross Fit fan-athletes spoke of the
‘sense of community’ that they feel in their online sports
circles, and added that social media plays a key role
in enabling them to endorse what is a relatively new
sport, to which they want to attract more participants
and fans. They noted that whilst fans of traditional sports
(like rugby) may use social media as ‘one of many’
platforms for discussion, fans of less traditional sports
(like Cross Fit) don’t have this luxury, and champion
social media as a main source of information and tips.
Content provided by teams or individuals has therefore
been pivotal to establishing fanship around these
‘non-traditional’ sports.
49% of 16-17 yearolds
agree that
they are a bigger
sports fan because
of social media
compared to 28%
of 22-25 year olds