Insights from Beatriz Indurain
With sports organizations diversifying their owned digital portfolios the focus can easily be skewed towards the latest trends in direct-to-consumer (D2C) product development, as well as their ability to leverage first-party fan data. While product and data ownership are essential for driving audience and commercial growth, the reality is that the digital strategy behind any successful business requires a wide range of touchpoints, including first and third-party platforms with a global footprint.
Just as social media is a powerful tool for distributing enticing content to international audiences, driving fan engagement isn’t its only role in connecting sports brands with their fans, but also plays an important part in connecting the entire fan-marketing funnel. This is demonstrated by our proprietary Fan-Monetization Data Feedback Loop, which showcases the “funnel” not within its traditional linear model, but as a dynamic ecosystem for which social media is a key pillar for driving both audience acquisition and customer conversions at every stage of the fan journey.
Research for our upcoming 2025 Digital Trends in the Sports Industry report indicates that sports properties which own both a high digital and data maturity, combined with a rich social media presence and a higher average daily social media posts, drive a greater return on their commercial revenues. By way of example, on average, European club football’s highest commercial earners, as per the Deloitte Football Money League 2025, score higher for their digital portfolios and data-collection capabilities, based on N3XT Sports unique research methodology.
Meanwhile, European football clubs which earn above €350 million commercial revenues per annum also demonstrate, on average, a far higher social media following (250.3 million) and provide a higher frequency of posts across their social media channels (39.5 per day). Although this is not indicative of every organization’s commercial performance, nor the strength of their respective digital strategies, it does highlight more broadly the value of owning a diverse, data-enabled D2C ecosystem among European football’s most commercially viable clubs, underpinned by a global social media following and a consistent flow of content.
SOCIAL MEDIA SHOULD SERVE EVERY STAGE OF AN ORGANIZATION’S DIGITAL STRATEGY
Speaking on the subject during a webinar hosted by N3XT Sports and BuzzMyVideos, our VP of Growth Beatriz Indurain explains the challenges which sports properties face when it comes to developing their social media strategy. For example, she says many organizations remain active on social media channels only during major events and, among those without a clear strategy, social media activity usually dies down during their off-season, making it harder to retain followers.
“There are many sports organizations that don’t realize yet the power of social media,” Beatriz continues. “They are very focused on delivering the end-product, which is usually a particular event, but those particular events are bringing maybe [up to] 40,000 people into your arena, depending on the sport or type of tournament or championship. By putting all your efforts into attracting and acquiring those physical fans, you are only tapping into a small audience compared to the power of social media, which can reach a global audience.”
According to research published in our Fan Engagement & Commercialization Guide 2024, which outlines the importance of fan-funnel optimization to generate fan loyalty, Olympic International Federations (IF) which showcased higher social media activity in the three months leading up to the Paris 2024 Olympic Games also demonstrated stronger social engagement before and during the global spectacle compared to those which didn’t. This highlights the importance for sports organizations to adopt an “always-on” mindset for driving engagement pre, during, and post competition, as well as synergy with their owned digital products to maximize commercial returns across the entire fan journey.
In contrast, rights holders which are unable to sustain high growth and engagement rates are not leveraging the different content formats on offer via the social media platforms available to them. Olga Luferova, Senior Strategic Partnerships Manager at BuzzMyVideos, explains how – through optimized “resource allocation” – sports organizations can utilize the varying types of social media features to engage different demographics, diversify their distribution, and “stay connected with your audience all year round”.
“YouTube is a great tool for discovery of your content,” Olga explains, “and is the second largest search engine after Google. You might be surprised but, in some countries, including the US, people listen to podcasts on YouTube more often than any other platform. So, when you are creating podcasts, for example, you can distribute them across all different platforms, and they will also appear in YouTube Music.”
WHAT’S N3XT?
Whereas digital transformation serves our clients by building a digital-product portfolio which provides them with unique monetizable touchpoints, N3XT Sports is also helping its clients to develop and execute an “always-on” social media strategy which advocates audience growth beyond the main event and delivers fan value year-round.
Among our clients, United World Wrestling (UWW) experienced exponential growth via its digital and social media channels through the Paris 2024 Olympics, including a 125 percent increase between the social media follower growth experienced during the Paris 2024 and Tokyo 2020 iterations, respectively. N3XT Sports has supported UWW at every stage of its digitalization, including the development of a commercial strategy designed to optimize audience acquisition and fan value via its UWW+ over-the-top (OTT) streaming product during its major championships, while also servicing its bespoke social media strategy.
In order to maximize commercial growth, streamlined data management is key – while owning a scalable customer relationship management (CRM) solution capable of navigating the fan journey allows organizations to leverage unique insights into the user behaviors which are delivering greater fan value, including how and when their social media strategy drives peak user conversions within their digital portfolios.
“Firstly, you need to understand your audience,” Beatriz says. “Who are they? Where are they? How do they interact with them? In which region are your platforms most powerful? Once you have defined your content categories and the platforms you are going to utilize during and after events, that’s when you can begin to develop a social media plan and its long-term content calendar.”
Our team at N3XT Sports works tirelessly to develop and implement data and digital transformation strategies across a multitude of sports properties at federation level, competition level, and club level. To find out more about how N3XT Sports can serve your organization, fill out the form below, and we’ll be in touch. Our goal is to drive the digitalization of the sports industry and our clients.