Make for the Medium: In the fight for fan attention and data, why Sport shouldn’t throw in the towel and leave it all to the tech heavyweights
I gave a talk at the fantastic SportsLoft event in London last week and this is it, blogified.
In short — I argue that:
- Sports and athlete brands have so much pulling power that despite adversity, there is no sensible reason for rights holders to give up the fight for attention and defer to tech and social media.
- With such radical behaviour change afoot (a la subscription fatigue, rights valuations, global population shifts, AI), now is the exact time to double down on building direct, habitual attention patterns with fans or would-be fans.
- This isn’t about replicating Netflix or creating more streaming/OTT offerings. To succeed and gain a position in the audience screen time league, sports organisations must create experiences that are made for the main medium of consumption — smartphone, CTV, stadium, console or wherever else we can create a compelling experiences, not solely reliant on rehashing TV viewing on devices.
To explain the rationale, I challenge the frequent assumption that the table is already set and that [insert large tech company] will dominate the conversation from here on in.
Today’s audiences do NOT have infinite choice
Do they really have choice? In theory yes, but in practice no. Actually, our consumption decisions are made by highly intelligent personalisation at Meta, ByteDance, Google, Amazon, Netflix, Microsoft et al.
Insta, TikTok, YouTube, [Insert your favourite games], even Duo Lingo and Tinder, promote radically sticky behaviours. They know so much about your preferences that they can give you what you want with alarming accuracy (usually).
Infinite choice is tinged with defeatistism. Acceptance that the game is over for ‘traditional’ media. It is so common that now we all just nod in acceptance.
We must recalibrate our mindset.
Today’s audiences do NOT have short attention spans
Have you looked at any Screen Time readouts recently? I’m not talking about your own Slack and Gmail-workaholism, go and ask a 19 year old to share theirs.
Task-switching accepted, 7–9 hours of attention per day is going into a very small number of apps. Even if broken into bits, this is another unhelpful defeatist refrain and there is plenty of evidence younger people are very willing to deep dive or glue themselves to relevant content that is relevant and cuts through. Saying they all have short attention spans is a lazy oversimplification.
SCREEN TIME is the battle ground
This I agree with. You might argue it’s semantics, but the mindset matters.
Like in-game possession stats or xG — Screen Time doesn’t determine the outcome but it’s a helpful confirmation of performance on the way. Vitally, it measures attention through a specific medium — in this case the smartphone. Similar measures in other contexts may also be critical depending who or what you are: CTV, IRL etc.
Make it for the Medium — why the mindset shift matters
McLuhan & Fiore’s infamous book The Medium is the Massage from the 60s was eerily prescient.
…the personal and social consequences of any medium — that is, of any extension of ourselves — result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology
He reminds us we should beware the temptation to treat the medium, device or context as a mere conduit for a story. It is part of the story if not the story itself.
Create the Experience, the money will follow
What most of the tech heavyweights understand is that their business is an experience that is monetised, not a transaction in disguise (arguably Amazon being an exception).
As such, they craft that experience for the medium itself then convert it to dollar value.
- TikTok Reels: made for the thumb, not the mouse
- YouTube auto-play: couldn’t exist in a cinema
- FAST Channels: made for CTV, but a version of what went before
- Tinder’s swipe: private, personal, wouldn’t work on a TV
- Amazon one-click purchase: made for mobile
They also recognise the need to build habits. I’ll avoid judgement here because that’s a different topic, but like it or not, all of them use psychological techniques to keep you coming back for more.
Yes, they tend to build on existing constructs or human needs: bargain shopping, karaoke, even voyeurism. Then they add the magic: variable ratio reinforcement — predictably unpredictable joy. Like the middle of Lidl, Amazon keeps you coming to see what bit of stuff you could get for an instant bargain. Instagram Reels give you just enough nonsense that the one in X videos you love, you just have to send to your partner. (or is that just me?).
Other methods include progression, status tiers, rewards, goal setting, community building. Crudely termed “Gamification”, for these companies there’s no purpose in a buzzword. Instead of worrying about terms they invest in compelling digital products.
- They build digital products for the medium
- They trial and error techniques to build up habits over time
- They monetise attention when they have it, iterating and optimising models
Contrast that with the majority of sports organisations and we can optimistically see where opportunity lies.
Why I’m optimistic about sport
Put simply, the window is still wide open.
Caitlin Clark’s resonance, the sheer promise of Anthony Edwards. The wow-factor of Jude Bellingham. The glitz of the Miami Grand Prix. Formula 1 team shenanigans, all on Netflix. Wrexham’s new story and triumphant promotion. Set in the right context, sport that seems to be written off, can be massively relevant.
Some have shifted gear — the NBA being one — creating an app that’s not just another Netflix clone but made to be your daily dose of basketball action, gaming and ultimately a funnel for membership and OTT subscription.
As the NBA have proven, there is still a massive opportunity for sport to be part of the audience’s daily screen time. The model will be different per sport, and varies by geography and audience. Yet in driving innovation and boldly trying new approaches, new business models emerge that mitigate revenue dependencies.
That’s why we get out of bed each morning at Monterosa — helping push on, try new things and make sport products more compelling for fans.
