What traditional media can learn from sports fandom’s bifurcation moment

Too often, fans are categorised as one amorphous group. They can be lumped together regardless of their age, purchasing power, community engagement, or entertainment consumption behaviours.

Fans are a diverse group and always have been. They are made up of multiple archetypes that come together as a collective whole. Yet, it does not always suit entertainment IP holders to think about them that way. It is easier to think about a single audience at a live concert; a collective group of ‘listeners’ on Spotify; or ‘viewers’ of a show on Netflix rather than creating a more complex strategy that caters to fandom sub-groups. Taylor Swift’s fans are known as ‘Swifties’: a term that describes a large group of her listeners who are passionate and loyal to her music. However, the definition does not stretch much further than that. While all of them are passionate, a more granular analysis would reveal an even deeper commitment among some ‘Swifties’ than others.

Viewers versus Fans

Ducking away from this challenge can have consequences for engagement and monetisation. This is especially true when entertainment IP holders do the opposite by stretching the term ‘fandom’ too far. They confuse high-viewership or listenership with fandom. In fact, the definition of fandom is far more nuanced. Can a regular watcher of One Piece on Netflix who never buys merchandise, does not engage with anime fans on socials, won’t attend an anime convention or produce fan art still be considered a dyed-in-the-wool anime fan? Perhaps they are just a highly engaged viewer who should be nurtured with more bingeable anime content.

Football fan archetypes

Fandom did not need such careful attention in the past because the entertainment’s distribution was more simple and highly controlled around rights. However, this has been changing for some time now as consumption fragments. First through streaming and gaming, then through social platforms, and now through the combination of social platforms, content creators, games and virtual worlds like Roblox. The kaleidoscope of content that is created and nourished via streaming, social, creators and games is providing more entry points for audiences to become fans. This, in turn, creates more fandom archetypes.

In the past, a true football fan would be defined as those who went to matches and stood in the stands each weekend. That changed with the democratisation of access via live broadcasts. Firstly, via free-to-air television and then via pay TV packages like Sky Sports. Now, football fans can engage with the sport in a multitude of ways.

Personality-focused fans may primarily engage via sports documentaries like All or Nothing and the player social media feeds. Player-focused fans will primarily support a superstar like Cristiano Ronaldo first, with club fandom not only coming second but shifting when he transfers. Gaming-focused fans will spend more time playing EA Sports FC then watching live matches. Meanwhile, creator-led fans prefer their engagement channelled through a creator’s personality and their community. These include creator-led watch-a-longs on YouTube, where viewers watch a creator’s reaction and commentary of a match without the live rights to broadcast video footage. Such is their power that Mark Goldbridge, the YouTuber behind That’s Football, secured more viewers of his watchalong of a Charlton game than Sky Sports managed with the official footage.

These fandom groups are now poised to become more important as engagement with football fragments further. Goalhanger, the video podcast producer, has secured a three-year deal (announced by Goalhanger on 7th August, 2025) to show weekly clips of La Liga, Spain’s premier football league. The Rest is Football: LALIGA podcast on Spotify and YouTube represents a seismic shift. Traditional broadcasters have already been disrupted by creator-led content on YouTube which has taken some fandom engagement away from their content. However, they have always been able to protect their USP via ownership of the live rights. If Goalhanger successful executes, they could become the first of a series of creator-led rights buyers of sports content. This would create serious implications for traditional entertainment companies, especially when it comes to engaging younger audience in the future.

How to adapt as sport’s fandom splits

This could lead to a bifurcation within sports fandom. Creators with enough financial clout will buy highlights packages or live sport rights to nurture fandom-led communities that appeal to younger audiences. Meanwhile, traditional media companies will continue to target mass reach and older audiences by acquiring rights for linear channels and streaming services.

Traditional media companies can prevent this reality by attempting to bridge the gap by embracing platform flexibility. They should seek to strike rights deals that allow them to repackage content for both a social-first audience led by their own creator talent and a streaming / broadcast first audience. Doing so effectively will mean taking a big step away from thinking about sports fans and viewers as a collective whole by paying close attention to nuances that exist within fan archetypes.