Sports publishing in 2025: Where do we stand?

The market has never been more precarious for traditional and independent publishers alike, but it's not all bad news - for now

As 2024 comes to an end, it’s been one of the most difficult years for publishers, both big and small, in recent memory.

At the top end, we’ve seen publishers punished for utilising their powerful domains to execute diverse affiliate programs, often quite far from the intent of the original site and domain. Google said it wasn’t having any of that, and their spam policy closed out that route to revenue - but really only in egregious cases where the connection between site and sale had been lost.

At the lower end, we saw independent publishers invited to a sit-down with Google to attempt to put forward their case as to how their sites were obliterated by a series of punitive Google updates, and get little in the way of answers.

In between there’s AI Companies led by Sam Altman who are actively doing whatever it takes to destroy creative jobs as their non-profit business - lol - lost another £4 Billion this year in the search for automated mediocrity.

And at the end we’ve got virtually every sport being usurped or upended from their archaic calendars in an attempt to make something new - with most struggling to understand what that means.

But what does sports publishing look like in 2025? The hell if I know, but I can take a logical guess as good as any.

1. AI, good and bad, eats into newsrooms

There are definitely ways in which AI can be utilised to assist newsrooms in content production in positive ways. For those who have never produced a piece of content, there’s administration work which takes place that requires a number of checks and balances that can be more effectively automated.

A lot of this has already been happening, but AI being the buzzword of the year, just like NFTs (remember them) were a few years ago, everything needs to be caveated with this inclusion, but it will almost certainly become more integrated into newsrooms and how they work. In an ideal world, this will be to complement what journalists and writers do - that’s the hope, at least.

But it shouldn’t become an outright replacement for that content. No-one wants it, no-one asked for it, and even at its best, the current form still reads in a synthetic and emotionless way. It won’t stop some, unfortunately, from seeing this as the free labour they’ve been dreaming of.

2. Social has a recalibration

It’s been clear for long time that the social media giants that we’ve allowed to permeate our daily lives have no intention of directing people to actual, legitimate news content.

But there’s a shake-up happening that might upend things and open up space for an alternative.

Firstly, Tik Tok is staring down the barrel of an impending US ban under the surveillance act, which would require parent company Bytedance to sell or else be blocked from updating the app, effectively killing it long-term. What the response would be to the most influential market for bullshit content - Americans taken in by very straightforward, incessant marketing by Tik Tok on other platforms, even though it does exactly what most of these platforms do anyway - remains to be seen.

Publishers have long known Facebook is dead as a traffic driver but the introduction of a new, all-encompassing bonus for all types of content in order to drive interactions could be something (unlikely), or another big fat nothing unless you own the biggest of pages (very likely).

Twitter remains utterly toxic yet only some publishers have chosen to look away, even though it drives no traffic value and decreasing brand value. The fact that the platform is built for deceitful engagement that pays users to wind each other up as long as they hold a blue tick leads to the very worst environment for reasonable news.

Blue Sky was heralded as a long-term replacement but, well, if you’ve seen it in your traffic analysis so far, you are one of the lucky ones.

Instagram will still be Instagram (as it stands).

There’s a stagnation setting in, not only in terms of what they can offer a user, but what benefit they are to publishers. It feels ripe for a change of scenery - we’ll need to see what that looks like.

3. Google giveth and taketh away

Google’s AI overlays which, once again, no-one likes and no-one asked for, are likely to be amped up for an increasing number of searches, meaning the organic search and top stories route to publisher traffic will no doubt be further strangled.

This is not going anywhere. Given the publisher discussions with Google that took place this year, there is (perhaps) sympathy but ultimately the algorithms run Google search now, and not the other way around.

Discover is delivering for some on scale, and has done for some time, but again this is a dangerous and unpredictable game that publishers are being forced to play in order to execute a moderately sustainable business.

The doubling down on this traffic route comes with it obvious risk and publishers need to continue to capture audiences in multiple places by whatever means they can - this means offering something that might be worth a user sticking around for.

4. What have you got?

Offering a user something they can’t get anywhere else - in whatever content form it comes in - has been a mainstay for a while but becomes more and more crucial to the content experience. Users are navigating away from broader generalists in to specific niches (and usually something that aligns with that they agree with).

Being distinct in the content you offer, and being different with it remains a key selling point and why an audience will want to revisit over the longer term. This in itself sends good signals to Google and gives the site an overall chance.

Journalists within newsrooms must realise that their requirement to be multi-skilled in their output has never been clearer. In order to survive the AI onslaught the people themselves, with thoughts, emotions and the ability to be related to will set that apart from the machines - we hope, at least.

5. Beware of sports’ continued ability to destroy itself

Any content production around sport has to come with a clear caveat that sometimes your engagement can only be as good as the sport that is played around it.

Football, rugby, golf, elements of tennis, boxing, and perhaps most of all, cricket, are all being subjected to enveloping change that will upend how and what happens within them.

Whether it be Unity Leagues, rugby buy-outs, t20 proliferation in cricket, Liv Golf, Saudi interruption or a sport being overtaken by parody (boxing), the path for sport as an engaging option for future generations is very much up for debate. This is a crucial time for them all and what happens next will have a seismic impact on what their audience 10 years from now looks like.

Of course, any publishing in and around sport has to be shaped by this. For publishers, as always, their futures may not be shaped by developments within their control.

Enjoy Christmas!

In this state of flux it’s important to only affect what you can affect, and there’s no point in being in a state of worry over what will happen next. Hopefully, there might been some bright moments to come, and in the meantime, close Linkedin, enjoy your turkey, and be positive over what 2025 looks like - it’s the only way publishers can be.