Blog: Fandom - Page 9

Is the peaking attention economy the underlying cause for the decline in sports consumption from the younger demographic, or is it the mediums through which rights holders are distributing sports content ? MIDiA argues… both.

YouTube is no stranger to subscription models; it had 53 paid channels in 2013 with monthly subscriptions priced from $0.99-$2.99. Four years later, the paid channels were discontinued with YouTube stating in its blog, “This service offered monthly subscriptions for some channels, but with less than 1% of creators using it today, it never achieved popularity with creators or users”.

Join us on Wednesday 17 th July in central London for MIDiA’s next free-to-attend event: Monetising Fandom in a Fragmented Content Landscape. Regular attendees of our events will know that they combine great new data and analysis with insightful panels and a mix of attendees not quite like at any other event, with representation from across multiple industries.

The whole essence of fandom is being turned upside down. An emerging crop of streaming-native artists is finding its audience in a much more targeted and efficient way than via the traditional music marketing.

With both the ICC Cricket World Cup and FIFA Women’s World Cup approaching their climaxes, the stark difference in audience engagement raises the question, is pay-TV killing off niche sports? Deciding the medium through which to distribute live sports has never been more crucial.

The NBA is the third highest grossing league globally, generating $7.4 billion in 2017, behind domestic rivals MLB and NFL. Whereas the MLB and NFL have largely struggled to entice a truly global following, the NBA have become synonymous with Chinese sports fans, and offers a template for the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) to grow its international fanbase.

Fandom is fragmenting. Streaming personalization and falling radio audiences are combining to rewrite the music marketing rulebook, ushering in a whole new marketing paradigm. Hits used to be cultural moments; artist brands built by traditional mass media.