Sports has a Gen Z problem

Maybe Amazon can help? Or Epic Games?

It’s weird to think that a bankruptcy could be the best thing that could happen to the sports industry.

But Bally Sports recent financial upheaval, and the overall upheaval among regional sports networks, could actually benefit the TV sports business just when it needs help.

You might say, why in the world would TV sports - the only thing that actually seems to work in linear TV and the programming that commands the highest prices in the land - need any help?

Well, look at Pat Mcafee, and Barstool, and Fornite.

On a recent episode of The Town podcast, host Matt Belloni and ex ESPN-er turned Substacker Ethan Strauss talked about the recent controversy over podcaster McAfee and Aaron Rodgers - and how ESPN seemed to have little leverage - give how desperate the network is to connect with a younger audience. The uncomfortable deal with McAfee echoes the very-short-lived ESPN pact with Barstool Sports, in a flailing attempt to capture the new generation of sports fans, who seem to like to gamble, play fantasy and watch highlights -but not actually sit though live games.

“Sports is declining in popularity among young people,” Strauss said.

There are numerous reasons for this. Younger generations have grown up with a different sports landscape, and vastly different media landscape.

Increasingly, among Gen Z and the up and coming Alpha, they have a completely different relationship with media.

You see this with Gen Z and Gen Alpha,” said ex Epic Games executive Dylan Collins on this week’s episode of my podcast Next in Media.

“They are overwhelmingly default creator rather than default consumer when it comes to content. And that is very different in outlook.”

Having grown up on YouTube, and increasingly massive games like Fortnite and Roblox, Gen Z and beyond is used to media that is participatory, social and interactive.

“With those young audiences…that notion of sort of them being bored or sort of uncomfortable with the pure lean back experience, like I think is very true,” said Collins.

“And I think the media landscape for young audiences is going to be very, very fragmented over time.”

Which brings me back to Bally’s. I’m certainly not saying that businesses going bankrupt is fun for the folks involved. But the end result - Amazon swooping in and taking a stake in the company, while committing to bring more Cincinnati Reds, Orlando Magic and Detroit Redwings games to Prime subscribers is surely a good thing for reaching Gen Z. After all, look at what happened with Amazon started streaming Thursday Night Football - as the weekly broadcast’s median age came down 7 years.

You have to bring young, cord-never consumers content on the platforms where they start their journeys.

The counter argument to this of course is the massive audience NBCUniversal brought to Peacock this past weekend. There is nothing like the NFL, and the game had just about everything going for it (dead Saturday night in January, game being played extreme weather, Patrick Mahomes, that singer who’s dating an athlete). We’ll see if that’s repeatable. I’d be curious how young the audience was (is Peacock young?) versus other platforms.

If I’m the NBA, and my rights are coming up shortly, I have to find a way to get some of my content on a streaming platform. Not only to engage with younger fans (where Netflix would seem to be ideal) but to ideally start to experimenting with what a live sports broadcast looks like in 2024 and beyond. To get Gen Z fans engaged, simply ‘watching’ a game may not cut it - a sports will likely have to be far more communal, and maybe even allow for some element of fan content creation. That’s why YouTube makes sense to me.

I’d even throw in Fortnite - which has not been rumored at all, and will probably never happen. But if it’s good enough for Eminem…