Global Ad Trends: Sport spending to reach $61bn this year

In an increasingly fragmented media environment, sport is one of the last remaining watercooler moments, drawing mass attention and big spending, but the latest edition of WARC’s Global Advertising Trends report finds that even the sport landscape is fragmenting. 

Why sport matters

Sport is one of the last providers of true ‘watercooler moments’, and this year’s bumper schedule of major sporting events will provide advertisers with unrivalled means to achieve mass reach, but these enduring qualities are under threat as media consumption fragments.

The report

Sports media in the era of fragmentation, WARC Media’s latest Global Advertising Trends report, examines sport’s new media landscape, the challenges and opportunities for brand advertisers and how rights holders plan to sustain the economics of sport in the years ahead. 

If you don’t subscribe to WARC Media, a sample report is available here. A WARC podcast discussing the findings outlined in the report will be available from 20 February. 

What you need to know

• Major events are on the horizon: Live sports still bring in colossal audiences, and do so in a year packed with events political and sporting: the 2024 Paris Olympics, UEFA Euros, and the T20 Cricket world cup among them. 
• Big audiences and big spending: More than 115m viewers watched the 2023 Super Bowl. To meet this reach, brands are forecast to spend $60.9bn worldwide – up almost one-fifth on pre-pandemic spending. 
• Social media takes centre stage: 93% of 18-24s engage with sport on social media at least weekly. However, Gen Z fandom is more ‘fluid’. Younger cohorts are often more interested in athletes’ stories, rather than teams or competitions.
• Sport is not enough to arrest linear TV decline: Across much of Europe, spend with linear TV is forecast to remain in decline throughout the summer of 2024. In the US, a recovery of linear TV spend will owe more to favourable year-on-year comparisons and the upcoming US Presidential election than to sport.
• Fragmentation of sports rights threatens mass reach moment: NFL coverage spans broadcast and cable TV (NBC, ESPN) as well as OTT (Peacock, Amazon Prime, YouTube TV) and mobile app (NFL+). It is becoming costlier and more complex for fans to follow all live games.

Key idea

 “Sports is the one constant within media plans. Live sport is getting the eyeballs and sport content is getting the engagement,” says Adrian Sutherland, vice president of Publicis Sports. 

“However, in some sports, local fans may need at least three separate subscriptions to watch a full season of games. It is imperative platforms keep a strong content plan in place to keep consumers engaged.” 

Global Ad Trends

Global Ad Trends, is a quarterly report which draws on WARC’s dataset of advertising and media intelligence to take a holistic view on current industry developments. 

It is part of WARC Media, which provides rigorous and accurate benchmarks aggregated and verified from over 100 reputable sources, empowering media decision makers to plan strategies with precision. WARC Media is available by subscription.