The Social Media Habits of Sports Consumers

The Social Media Habits of Sports Consumers

In our most recent study on Sports Media consumption, we have explored online sports betting, eSports, Fantasy Sports, and Cable vs. Streaming of Sports. Today, we will look at how sports media consumers use social media to discuss sports.

 

Graph (below): Do you use Social Media to post/comment about sports?

More than half of sports consumers (61%) post and comment about sports on social media. The younger the sports consumer, the more they post on social media. A whopping 79% of sports consumers ages 18-39 post about sports, while only 31% of sports consumers aged 60 years or more make posts online.

Sports consumption also had an impact on how many posts/comments a sports fan makes on social media. The largest demo that uses social media to post about sports was, unsurprisingly, those who consumed the most of it. 84% of people who consume 4 or more hours of sports a day comment about sports on social media.

 

Graph (below): Do you follow any sports personalities/figures (athletes, commentators, coaches, sports talk hosts, fan accounts, podcast hosts, etc.) on social media?

Graph showing sports consumers social media habits when following sports figures

The numbers are nearly identical when looking at if people follow sports personalities on social media. Again, more than half (65%) of sports consumers follow sports personalities on social media. The younger the consumer also indicates the higher likelihood of them following a sports personality on social media. 84% of sports consumers ages 18-39 follow sports figures, while only 35% of sports consumers aged 60 years or more follow sports figures. The only difference between this and posting is that follows increase by about 5% across all demos.

What do these two questions show overall? That sports consumers are highly engaged on social media, and that engagement only increases as age decreases. Social media is clearly a winner in terms of speaking to, hearing from, and targeting sports consumers.

Crowd React Media is a research and consulting firm that seeks to spot trends in sports media consumption. The above results are from a survey we fielded online in May and June of 2021. Respondents qualified for the survey by indicating their interest in sports media (Sports viewership, betting, highlights, press, eSports, Fantasy, etc.). The 500+ respondents were posed a variety of questions to learn about their sports media consumption habits. In-tab 535+ Respondents from Major Metros across the United States.

 

TL;DR

  • More than half of Sports Consumers post about sports to social media (61%) and follow sports figures (65%)
  • The younger the sports consumer, the more likely they are to post about sports (79%, 18-39 years old) and follow sports figures (84%, 18-39 years old).
  • Sports consumers who watch 4+ hours a day are also super users of social media about sports. 84% will post about sports and 84% follow sports figures.
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Katie Miller

Katie Miller is a founder of Crowd React Media and is Project & Client Management Director at Harker Bos Group.