Blue 42, Blue 42, Hut Hut! IT’S NO SECRET THAT WE LOVE OUR SPORTS,


47% of Americans follow college sports


Te NCAA is thankful for your support, netting $797m in revenue last year. 31 million Americans attended a college game last year, with men’s football and basketball being the most popular.


PricewaterhouseCoopers recently forecasted that the entire North American sports market would grow to $73.5b by next year, up from $60.5b in 2014. However, that growth is not being driven by admission; it is being driven by media rights deals, as many fans are choosing to stay home to watch “the big game” rather than venturing out to the arena or stadium. 2016 saw the sixth consecutive year of dwindling college football home attendance, with average attendance at 43,106 fans per game - the lowest since 2000. Leagues like the NBA and NFL are experiencing attendance declines as well, and hundreds of sports commentators and economists are hypothesizing explanations. Teories include disillusionment with the plethora of scandals, the cost of attendance (Yahoo Sports estimates that it costs a family of four an average of $443.93 to attend a three-hour NFL game),


the convenience of live-streaming, and many more nuanced explanations.


Tere are certainly numbers to back up the live- streaming explanation. According to Nielson’s Year in Sports Media Report, “more than 127,000 hours of sports programming were available on broadcast and cable TV [in 2015], and viewers spent more than 31 billion hours watching sports, up 160% and 41%, respectively, from 2005.” From the same report, 95% of total sports viewing happens live; while associated statistics reported by Te Globe and Mail note that many young viewers rarely sit and watch a full game – they’ll catch highlights and clips online afterwards. In fact, overall TV viewership of sporting events is on the decline, while mobile and desktop viewing is making up for it.


Our industry may benefit from closely monitoring and adapting to what’s happening in the sports industry: fans are finding more convenient and affordable ways to enjoy the pastime, and the classic value proposition is no longer selling (all of) them. Teams are currently experimenting with ways to increase the value of attending a game, from implementing dynamic pricing, to more tantalizing promotions, to renovating arenas with technology and more intimate seating and suites to lure their fans away from their screens and into their stadiums.


American Professional Sports League


Teams NFL MLB NBA NHL 32 30 30 31


Games 256 2,419 1,230 1,230


Total Annual Attendance


17.8m 72.7m 22m 21.4m


Average Attendance 69,487 30,042 17,884 17,422


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