Sport's problem: What happens when people cease to care?
The football content industry is suffering many existential threats, but people tuning out means they are less likely to want to pay for things now, and in the future.
It’s the subject not many people want to focus on, as they don’t want to kill the golden goose. But what happens when a sport is no longer able to engage with its audience?
To be clear, I think football in particular is a long way from that point. The Premier League’s worldwide popularity, though it is plateauing, is such that it is still by far the most popular league. Viewing figures in the US went up in 2023/24, albeit from a modest, but growing, base.
But as the old saying goes, familiarity breeds contempt, and it is not entirely to do with Man City winning six of the last seven titles, though the grim inevitability that they would win this one, despite the efforts of Arsenal and previously Liverpool, is hard to shake. And that’s before we get into a debate around asterisks, 115 charges and all the complex financial instruments that are boring to discuss, but pivotal to how the game works.
The worst feeling possible whenever a tournament reaches its climax is sheer indifference, and that’s the pervasive messaging right now; all of the above hasn’t annoyed fans as much as it’s made them cease to care.
The gigantic gap between EPL broadcast revenue streams and the rest of Europe, coupled with financial measures introduced by the likes of Uefa, La Liga and the Premier League themselves, have slowed the transfer market down in terms of interesting moves. Managers are now coaches. Klopps’ are harder to come by, systems and data scientists far easier. The three relegated teams only came up last season. Players appear permanently knackered. And, of course, the bullshit that is VAR.
What do fans do when the spectacle is boring?
There’s two things they do; disengage until it’s interesting again, or don’t pay to watch.
The first one is a particular problem for news publishers in particular and having worked in numerous newsrooms and ran websites of varying size, I can say that people who aren’t close to what’s happening NEVER bake in BORING to their numbers.
In the increasing race for more eyeballs, more page views, more users, more subscribers, more everything, the reality of what’s happening on the field itself is rarely considered - but it’s a massive problem and one which, given what the current landscape looks like for publishers, it absolutely should be.
Fan TV is a case in point, and one that’s often missed. Arsenal Fan TV have been around through good and bad, but business is much better when it’s bad. Fans want to rant, opposition fans want to laugh at them. Mark Goldbridge is enjoying his golden period mainly because Manchester United are one of the most bankable, inept teams of the past decade. If they get better, will the numbers hold up? The fans hate watching - and that audience is FAR bigger than people comprehend - will definitely go down. Sometimes the journey is more fun to engage with than the ultimate destination.
Piracy
And if the product isn’t good enough for fans - who are being strangled by increasing costs in every direction - then they’ll simply find a way around it.
This is a problem for a full post, but the way that piracy is largely ignored by huge swathes of the sports industry remain staggering.
The availability of firesticks has never been higher, and the number of services required to watch all the sports you want has never been higher, either.
It’s estimated that 20 MILLION people worldwide illegally streamed Fury v Usyk last weekend, in what was one of the biggest fights of the 21st century. When people find the alternative not only cheaper, but just as easy, you’ve got a problem. And sport is facing one.
Conclusion
The issue sport in general faces is that limitless stakeholders want their piece of a finite pie, and everyone else is worse off as a result.
When talent is spread around, resources are stretched and engagement falls, it’s never discussed in newsrooms nor in the general space.
But it’s happening. It’s happening more than ever, and the consumer has more options than ever. Sport needs to respond.