By Anna Reynolds, consultant at Yonder Consulting
The buzz of the Paris Olympics has been incomparable to the Covid-affected disappointment that was Tokyo three years ago. Audiences agree, as the total number of viewers on Discovery+ for Paris 2024 exceeded the whole of the previous Olympic Games, hitting one billion views after just two days.
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The interest and excitement around the games isn't done once the medals are won, however. Audiences are still very much interested in viewing and taking part in sports once the curtain closes on big events, especially in sports that aren’t constantly in the public eye.
But the biggest hurdle isn’t finding and engaging with these new audiences, it’s retaining them. So how do we keep the torch lit and ensure people aren't just watching and then switching off every four years?
Placing sports centre stage
The Olympics does an incredible job of inspiring new, younger audiences to gain interest and participate in sports that they would have otherwise never considered before. It’s arguably the only time sports such as taekwondo, javelin and even swimming expand into the mainstream.
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By GlobalDataThe Olympics plays an important role in putting these more niche sports on the big stage and reaching both engaged audiences and the masses. And it works.
A study published before the 2024 Paris Olympics revealed there were major sports participation spikes in the lead-up to the 2008, 2012 and 2016 Olympics. The report put this down to increased media coverage, engagement within schools and programs organised by local sporting bodies and clubs.
Interest in skateboarding in particular skyrocketed after its Olympic debut in Tokyo, and the same is hoped for new sports introduced during Paris this year and the ones planned for Los Angeles in 2028 – such as sport climbing, surfing, baseball and lacrosse.
But increases are often short-term spikes, with any gains typically tending to decrease over time. This correlates with our own study around the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup which found that, although interest in women's football rose significantly during and immediately after the tournament, this interest had slowed in the months afterwards.
Under a third of the UK public (31%) were interested in women’s football before the tournament began. This rose to over two-fifths (42%) immediately after the tournament but decreased to just over a third (37%) three months on.
There’s clearly an opportunity here for organisations and brands to capture new audiences and bring new sections of the market into the sporting ecosystem. But by allowing interest to decline, businesses and organisations across the sports industry are losing new, highly valuable audiences.
How do we capitalise on sports success?
National sports organisations need to help local clubs promote themselves in their local communities and make sports more accessible to the general public. While online portals or apps that aid the discovery of nearby sports clubs would help, partnership programmes that market and raise the presence of local clubs can go a long way in sustaining interest at grassroots level.
Look at how London 2012 left a lasting legacy, paving the way for future Olympic athletes. The aftermath of the games that year led to game-changing initiatives across the UK – such as the Mayor of London Sports Legacy programme, Change4Life and Get Set – which all received funding to improve accessibility, sports education and participation.
In terms of participation, free trial days provide an open, risk-free way for people to learn new hobbies. Equipment is a challenge, especially for specialist activities, but this does represent another opportunity for equipment manufacturers and sports shops to get involved through donation or sponsorship schemes.
The biggest challenge from a broadcasting standpoint is scheduling other large-scale sporting events after the Olympics. Many simply can’t compete with the draw of sports such as football, rugby or cricket. However, there are plenty of fallow slots during the calendar year when viewers’ craving for sports is high – such as the summer and winter break.
The huge interest in sports documentaries also feels like an obvious opportunity. Netflix’s Simone Biles Rising and SPRINT series were both launched in July this year to whet the appetites of audiences. But outside of these, there’s a content gap that could be filled by other streaming platforms and broadcasters, especially those on free-to-air TV.
Going for gold
The heightened interest and participation in sports around the Olympics shows the broad impact sports can have in inspiring audiences to be more physically active and potentially become the next gold medallists. But we need to sustain this interest and engagement more regularly than once every four years.
The key thing is to understand these newly gleaned sports fans and to get to the heart of their lives, goals and nuances as well as understand the wider social and political context in which they are operating. Learning who these fans are and what they're going through is essential in developing relevant, authentic offerings that will succeed.
For example, the way in which younger generations are consuming sports has shifted, with a study from OnePoll finding 74% of Gen Z’s get most of their sports content from social media sites like TikTok. It would help explain the social success of this year’s Olympics.
Viewership is certainly an issue for younger generations. It’s becoming tougher and tougher for athletics and related sports to compete with the masses of other content online – from social media to streaming platforms – even during the Olympics. Influencers and content creators have helped put the games back on the radar of young audiences, and is the reason why the US athletics team spent a reported $500,000 a day to have Snoop Dogg as their mascot.
The ever-accelerating pace of change, particularly among younger generations, is vital in this. For example, while we know that social media, gaming, and other digital platforms are innovative ways of tapping into younger audiences, we need to understand them as macro factors evolve – such as political and economic conditions – and how they affect us all as customers, citizens, and sports fans.
Continuing to showcase sports outside of major events can also have wider benefits for businesses and brands. By gaining insight into their audience’s dreams and fears, and observing how they live their lives, businesses can build products and solutions that serve their customers on their terms. Not only can this help capture this new audience and help drive business growth, but it will also continue the momentum built by the Olympic games.
If organisations can carve out an authentic space for this new audience within sports, rather than developing a reactionary quick fix when the Olympics rolls around again, they can grow short-term interest while retaining them for years to come.
