Why brands must follow fans beyond the final whistle

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The most valuable fan engagement happens in the hours, days and weeks between games, says Phil Duffield of The Trade Desk

Live sports remains one of the most powerful environments in the media. The Premier League’s £6.7bn UK broadcast rights deal over just four years underlines how much that live attention is worth. 

Fans keep watching for the chance of a moment that changes everything, whether that’s a last-minute winner, a goalless draw, a shock red card or a brilliant performance. These are the moments that stay with us. Live sport shows the power of the unpredictable and the unmissable and gives broadcasters and brands a powerful route to a fan’s undivided attention.

But while billions are invested in securing rights to the biggest sporting moments, most brands still underestimate where fandom actually lives – in the hours, days and weeks between the games.

New research from The Trade Desk Intelligence and PA Consulting found that 80% of sports fans actively engage across every stage of the sporting lifecycle, from pre-game build-up to post-game analysis. Their interest doesn’t begin at kick-off and end at the final whistle, so the brand opportunity shouldn’t either. 

Fans debate line-ups before kick-off, dissect performances afterwards and follow transfer rumours, player stories, private lives and punditry long after the broadcast has ended. In the downtime, regardless of match schedules, they switch between sports, platforms and formats according to what interests them. 

The recent international break may have put the Premier League on pause, but football podcast The Overlap brought in a record number of listeners during the break with its episode on Manchester City’s recent scandal. Yes, that was a particularly big story, but it illustrates how the conversation around sport continues whether games are scheduled or not. 

Fans follow their team, not a specific channel or broadcaster. The industry still plans around fixtures, while consumers increasingly engage through communities, personalities and content ecosystems that operate all year round. The value is no longer confined to the rights holder or the live event. It’s distributed across the open internet wherever fandom exists. Each touchpoint represents a different opportunity to reach that audience, yet they are often planned and measured separately.

This is more than a change in viewing habits. It challenges how the industry thinks about the value of sports audiences in the first place. Sports fans are passionate and engaged, but not one-track minded. In fact, they follow an average of four sports throughout the year, so the implication for brands is huge. 

The industry’s focus on live sports is understandable. In the last 12 months, 71% of people aged 16 and over watched live sports on TV at least once. It’s a compelling environment for brands to be a part of. But the tendency to organise investment around individual fixtures can obscure the value of the wider sporting conversation, meaning brands can miss out on a huge amount of discovery. 

That downtime between spike moments is exactly where fans are looking for more information. Each hub for fandom – audio, news sites, social media and club forums and websites – offers a different opportunity for brands, sponsors and advertisers to connect with fans. 

The challenge is to recognise how these channels work together to sustain interest throughout the season and feed different need states that can inform campaigns, rather than treating the live broadcast as the only moment that really matters.

Connected TV remains the anchor of the modern sporting experience, with 83% of fans considering it their go-to source for engaging with sport. But while live broadcasts drive the biggest audiences, they capture only a fraction of the time fans spend engaging with the teams, athletes and stories they care about. But fans’ relationships to a match aren’t nearly as rich as those they have to a team, an athlete or Cinderella story that’s playing out across a season. Herein lies the real engagement that fans feed themselves, across whichever formats and touchpoints fit best into their own lifestyles. 

Advertisers need to start planning around that full lifecycle of a fan’s interest. Just look at the Football Association’s deal with Peppa Pig, a sports partnership that will reach potential WSL fans when they are still discovering the world, let alone football.

The lesson for brands, broadcasters and advertisers is to live and breathe sport just as much as the fans do. If fans never switch off, then campaigns need to reward that dedication across the sports ecosystem. Show up on the pre-game podcast, the post-game analysis on the club’s website, while they’re playing a video game to test tactics.

The future of sports advertising isn’t about winning a single moment of attention during a match. It’s about understanding the full rhythm of fandom and showing up wherever that passion lives. Brands that do that won’t just reach sports fans. They’ll become part of the communities that sustain sport long after the final whistle.

Phil Duffield is VP Northern Europe at The Trade Desk