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A recently released report from the Deloitte Center for Technology, Media & Telecommunications presents some bold insights about the future of the sports industry.
“As investors flock to the sports industry, athletes gain more agency and the competition for fan attention intensifies, global sports are becoming even more professionalized,” notes the Deloitte Insights report, titled “2025 global sports industry outlook.” “This transformation is not limited to the top leagues but extends to lower-tier leagues and college athletics in the United States, too. The stakes are high, and sports organizations should adapt to meet increased financial expectations. They may need to build stronger back offices, compete for top talent, leverage data and analytics strategically, and develop new organizational competencies.”
The extensive report focuses on five major topics: sports and streaming, a more crowded playing field, the future of talent for sports organizations, monetization of fan data, and the evolution of immersive sports. Each section also offers a series of “strategic questions to consider.”
Sports and Streaming
Apple TV+, Netflix and other services that provide streaming video on demand (SVOD) have made giant strides in securing big bucks for sports broadcasting rights.
“For providers who’ve been in the sports broadcasting game for consecutive seasons, we expect to see a focus on delivering new experiences that further engage fans, monetize content and improve viewing quality,” according to the report, co-authored by six Deloitte officials, most of whom work in Deloitte’s Sports practice. “Immersive, real-time integrations like in-gaming betting, seamless merchandising capabilities and social experiences are likely to become a reality.”
The report details the rise of “altcasts” — alternative sports telecasts — and original content such as ESPN’s “ManningCast” (in which former NFL quarterback brothers Peyton and Eli Manning put their own spin Monday Night Football) and Amazon Prime Video’s Next Gen Stats feed on Thursday Night Football (which offers viewers deep-dive stats and AI-powered insights). Docuseries, documentaries, live talk shows and reality-style shows featuring teams, athletes and their families also could increase fan engagement and even create a new generation of fans, the report predicts.
It also acknowledges that more than 90 percent of Gen Z and millennial fans say they consume sports content via social media. That means “convincing younger fans — and future generations of fans — to commit to a paid SVOD service that adds to their costs and makes discovering live sports difficult may pose a challenge for leagues, teams and sports streamers to face head-on.”
A Crowded Playing Field
The proliferation of more digital distribution channels like streaming services and social media is driving the creation of new sports leagues, teams and events, according to the report.
“There is increasing private equity investment in some smaller and newer leagues,” the authors write. “These leagues can be attractive because they often have greater growth potential, with the pool of top teams and leagues being limited and expensive. In 2025, fans are expected to have access to more sports content than ever. A question is, what is the upper limit of sports fans’ attention and spending?”
Add to that the global expansion of NFL games, the recent inclusion of an in-season NBA tournament, the expansion of the NCAA’s College Football Playoff, the creation of the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup and the addition of more teams to the 2026 Men’s World Cup field — not to mention the wild popularity of the WNBA, the rise of the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL and the creation of the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL). And don’t forget the startup Women’s National Football Conference, Unrivaled (a new women’s 3x3 basketball league) and TGL Golf (an indoor simulator golf league).
Whew. Even hardcore sports fans can quickly become overwhelmed.
“There are challenges around potential audience fragmentation, ‘carrying capacity’ for fans, long-term revenue potential and physical limits for athletes,” according to the report. “Has society reached peak sports and, if not, what will it take to break through the noise?”
Future of Talent for Sports Organizations
Today, there arguably are more opportunities than ever to find work in the sports world.
“Workers with sports industry experience are being sought after by a growing number of leagues and federations, governing bodies, individual teams, mega-events and other sports-adjacent organizations,” the report notes. “To help with the attraction [of] this skilled talent pool, sports organizations have a unique opportunity to rethink and enhance their overall approach to human capital. Moving forward, we expect to see sports organizations thinking more holistically about their workforce, and how they attract, reward, incentivize and retain talent to successfully meet business objectives. In short, sports organizations should look to develop star players both on the field and in the front office.”
Many of those new jobs likely will be tech-focused, as organizations expand their digital offerings: fan databases, AI capabilities, and streaming and social media opportunities.
Monetization of Fan Data
As with the leveraging of a growing talent pool, Deloitte’s team predicts organizations that use emerging technology to collect, manage and monetize fan data have a distinct advantage.
“As the global sports industry becomes more data-savvy and data-rich, organizations that maintain comprehensive fan databases — and are able to use that fan data to demonstrate value and ROI — could gain a competitive advantage in securing attractive sponsorships,” according to the report. “Moving forward, we expect to see access to meaningful and actionable fan data become an important selling point in negotiating and structuring these partnerships.”
Detailed fan databases contain insights that range from demographics and purchasing behaviors to engagement with other brands, which can be beneficial when creating future partnerships, the authors say. This would “allow a sports league to securely share aggregated and anonymized fan data with a sponsor to identify overlap between the league’s fans and its customers.”
Some leagues and teams already are doing this, signaling “a new era in sports industry sponsorship deals.”
Evolution of Immersive Sports
The potential for fans to experience sports in a whole new way is within reach, and the report predicts big things.
“With advances in display technology, fresh investment and new partnerships, innovative out-of-venue experiences are coming to life,” it says. “Providers are looking to engage sports fans in new ways and expand the concept of sports as entertainment. Instead of simply watching an event, fans can be fully wrapped in an experience that rivals being in the actual venue. There will likely be a lot of hype around these new concepts in 2025. If some take off, we may see a whole new category of sports experiences emerge.”
These experience could include using proprietary display technologies to create a “shared reality” and hosting or broadcasting major events at venues like the Sphere in Las Vegas and IAX theaters around the country.
“The financial and cultural success of the sports industry is encouraging organizations to increasingly take a more professional approach — one that is transforming both how the industry operates and how it brings its experiences to market,” the report concludes. “In 2025, sports organizations will likely build stronger back offices, powered by a deeper bench of talent and wider flows of data. Engaging new sports experiences are expected to emerge, and the professionalization of college athletics may continue to have extraordinary impacts. Can this create a better future for everyone — athletes, fans, owners and investors?”
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