Figures from across the industry give their predictions for the next 12 months
Ahead of 2025, Broadcast Sport has gathered opinions from across the industry on what could be next for sport content in 2025. According to the group, connection, community and diversification are at the heart of what is to come during what will be another year of big events for sport. Read below to find out more.
Kahlen Macaulay, senior manager, international sports partnerships, Snapchat:
Sports stars will build even stronger connections with fans through content, particularly in women’s sports.
Today’s sports fans are hungry for more than just the sporting action and context, seeking content and connection. Athletes will continue to leverage digital platforms in 2025 to share their story, personal brand and values, building stronger connections with sports fans. While on-pitch performance will remain important, sports stars are realising that what they stand for off the pitch resonates almost as much, if not more, with their fans and can act as a catalyst to growing wider audience attention. The boundaries between sport, music, fashion and culture will continue to blur as sports stars define their own narrative and build communities and relationships that extend beyond their performance on the field.
With the Women’s 2025 Euros and the Women’s Rugby World Cup taking place next year, 2025 will be another catalyst for the growth, interest and following of women’s sport. The combination of top tier sporting events and the rise of superstar athletes, such as Caitlin Clark and Leah Williamson, will accelerate interest and engagement - opening the door to an influx of new fans who might never have watched basketball or football, but now have a deeper connection to the women’s game.
Fabio Tambosi, SVP of marketing, ESL FACEIT Group
2025 will be the year for brands to prioritise building deeper emotional connections with their communities. That’s where the gaming and esports world, known for its tight-knit, highly captive and engaged audiences, brings opportunities for brands to deliver interactive and immersive experiences.
With Newzoo projecting esports’ global audience to reach 640 million by the end of 2024, its strategies for fostering active participation that drives audience retention offer transferable learnings for broadcasters and streaming platforms on how to engage fans using community-driven insights to grow businesses.
Consumers increasingly expect more personalisation and interactivity from the content they consume. With attention spans averaging less than eight seconds, and Gen Z and Gen Alpha seamlessly constantly switching between devices and platforms, broadcasters can take cues from gaming to drive continuous engagement through interactivity experiences.
Expect to see more integration of live polls, real-time engagement features, and native in-game storytelling that resonates with younger, tech-savvy audiences. Additionally, branded virtual events and gamification, like overlays and real-time product placements that change and adapt throughout the user journey whilst utilising the community’s native language, will deliver unprecedented value and make broadcast coverage more entertaining and accessible to new, younger audiences.
Lotte Jones, chief commercial officer, The News Movement
With a fragmented media landscape, broadcasters and brands need to work harder to reach younger audiences. While online viewing is increasing, broadcast viewing is down (Ofcom), resulting in less money coming in from advertisers. To counter this, broadcasters need to adapt their methods for engaging young viewers and learn from the formats and creators that resonate well.
Gen Z cares about content like politics and sports just as older audiences do, but they are more discerning when it comes to delivery – you must have an engaging medium and the right face to front it.
We are already seeing sports broadcasting changing from Sky’s Soccer AM making way for Saturday Social, to last summer’s Olympics TikTok partnership and promotion on NBC’s streaming platform, Peacock - both leveraging more digital-friendly formats and content created by influencers. These experiments need to extend to other topics, too. With a fragile social landscape, young people are constantly looking for answers, new forms of content that engage from news to sport, and comedy.
For traditional media to make an impact in 2025, it will have to understand the dynamics where meme characters can have the number one podcast, and millions tune into vloggers turned boxers. Lean into the disrupter mindset - by adopting an omni-channel approach, leveraging multiple touchpoints, the fragmented media landscape can work to your benefit.
Jennifer Batty, director of content partnerships, Samsung TV Plus & The Art Store:
2025 will see a rise in the calibre of content made accessible to the average TV viewer as free ad-supported streaming (FAST) continues to grow.
Across the UK, audience’s viewing habits are becoming shaped much more by content than platform loyalty. Data shows that TV owners are often in discovery mode, with 39% flicking between an average of three different apps in a single sitting. However with so much content scattered across multiple platforms, choice paralysis and subscription fatigue will continue to be a challenge for content providers, particularly for those behind paywalls.
The key to making an impact in 2025 will be using free, ad-supported platforms and building bigger, combined audiences. In late 2024, we’ve already seen platforms and providers teaming up to make premium content more accessible and grow the possible fan base for new series. Whether these shows are made available to subscribers on other paid platforms or placed in front of the paywall altogether, the walls that separate much of the CTV experience are coming down in search of additive audiences.
We worked closely with Prime in 2024, generating buzz for series two of The Rings of Power by placing the whole first series on ad-supported streaming, and these FAST debuts are sure to become more commonplace. As a result, consumers will enjoy easier access to premium content, with studios leveraging FAST platforms to highlight top-tier programming and debut series in new markets.
Tom Ellis - director of Yahoo Creative (EMEA) at Yahoo Ads
2025 will see a continued blend between AI & human creativity. As AI continues to move from being a background tool to being used more openly in creative production, we will soon start to see AI having a bigger role to play in the final output of creative. This will help take the robot out of creative producers and allow them to focus more time on the storytelling aspect of production - ensuring that a compelling narrative is being crafted that feels authentic.
The barriers to entry will also begin to drop. With better access to creative AI tools, writers, designers and producers will be able to execute their vision without the need for extensive production teams or limitless budgets. Audiences are starting to become more comfortable with AI, but the savvier viewer can still see when it is applied which can lose trust in ads. Transparency will be key here. Human creativity will never be replaced by AI, but it can create more personalised content for audiences that resonates with the individual as well as the masses.
Top image: Getty
No comments yet