VAB<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n“Sports is a core passion for most fans \u2014 65% of avid sports fans say they feel ‘personally connected’ to their favorite team,” he said, citing a VAB consumer study. “Some of their fondest memories in their lives are with sports. Some have even cried during sporting events.”<\/p>\n
Sports appeal to younger demographic groups that are more ethnically diverse than prior generations, and 40% of sports viewers are women, according to VAB’s study. Considering that women make most of the purchase decisions in U.S. households, sports programming can be a way to reach millions of key consumers.<\/p>\n
“Sports have the ability to drive consumers right through the purchase funnel,” Wiese said. “Sports fans are more likely to be talking about ads that they see with their friends and their families. They’re more likely to be going on websites from ads that they see on sports to get more information \u2014 and ultimately, they’re more likely to buy the product that they see advertised.”<\/p>\n
Lessons of 2020’s Upheaval<\/h3>\n
Sports leagues went through several stages of disruption last year, providing more insights into how fans consume video content., Wiese said.<\/p>\n
After the NCAA canceled the Men’s Basketball Tournament, and professional sports leagues like the National Basketball Association and Major League Baseball suspended play, fans clamored for sports-related programming.<\/p>\n
The NFL and Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) reformatted their yearly drafts of college players as virtual events \u2014 and saw record viewership. ESPN saw the highest ratings for a documentary when it aired “The Last Dance,” a 10-part series about the effort by NBA legend Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls to win their sixth championship in eight seasons.<\/p>\n
As leagues resumed play in summer, there was a surge in enthusiasm and higher TV viewership, though the schedule started to get crowded by the second half of the year. Amid scheduling changes, particularly for college football, fans were uncertain about game times.<\/p>\n
“Some sports fans are creatures of habit,” Wiese said. “They expect to see their sports run at certain times.”<\/p>\n
The crowded schedule led to some cannibalization of audiences, but Wiese said the shift was an anomaly. About three quarters (72%) of sports fans prefer to watch games on TV, where they can experience “front-row” action from the comforts of home.<\/p>\n
“The fundamentals of sports haven’t changed,” he said. “Sports provides a sense of connection, camaraderie, community and commitment to a team.”<\/p>\n
You are watching \u201cLive Sports 2021:\u00a0What\u2019s Next on TV,\u201d a Beet.TV + VAB\u00a0leadership video series presented by Effectv, a Comcast company. For more videos,\u00a0please visit this page<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Super Bowl this year will be especially significant as the capstone of the National Football League’s herculean effort provide live sports entertainment amid a global pandemic that threatened to upset its season. The health crisis has been enormously disruptive, but has shown the power of live sports to entertain millions of fans while helping […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":71077,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[]},"categories":[8632],"tags":[8635],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70896"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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