Sometimes sports fans want to bet — other times, they just want to sit back and enjoy the game.
At Variety and Sportico’s Sports and Entertainment Summit, Deloitte’s Shawn Bryant and Kat Harwood sat down with Linda Ong, CEO and founder of Cultique, to discuss Deloitte’s first-ever Sport Fan Insight Study. The study, which ran through March 2023 and surveyed the attitudes and behaviors of over 3,000 sports fans aged 14 to 77, found that a new era of watching sports has created a demand for more viewership options, but also a way to work out the kinks that come with new tech.
Harwood, principal of sports industry practice at Deloitte Consulting, explained that the industry is entering what the company calls the “era of immersive sports,” which revolves around the desire for optionality in viewing.
“Shawn and I could be watching the same game, but maybe Shawn wants to be placing bets, he has live stats streaming on the side, he might have a parlay going and is watching another game on his laptop while betting on his phone,” Harwood explained. “I instead love to look up where different athletes went to school or where their hometown is, so those little bubbles are popping up while I’m watching.”
At Deloitte, they believe the future of watching sports is highly personalized, from targeted ads to unique streaming methods.
In particular, the study highlighted the younger generations, Gen Z and millennials, who are more interested in this optionality and are consuming media in a more social and interactive way. “You can see in the data that sitting down and watching a live event from beginning to end is a more solid pie chart for the older generations,” said Harwood.
When it comes to betting, the study showed that about a fifth of fans participate in some kind of online parlaying.
“Now we have the data to back it up, and now it becomes a much bigger part of the story. We know that if you’re sports betting, you’re more likely to go to an event live, you’re more likely to buy merchandise or memorabilia,” said Bryant, managing director and sports practice leadership at Deloitte Consulting.
The legality of sports betting has created a more immersive fan experience, especially for younger audiences. In addition, streaming has created another layer of immersive sports engagement, allowing fans to view content where they want, when they want.
Harwood also pointed out an interesting downside illuminated by the study: Lots of streamers cause higher levels of frustration when it comes to watching sports due to fragmentation of channels and inaccessibility. Sometimes, it’s harder to find where the Olympics are streaming as opposed to just pressing a channel button on cable.
