Engaging A New Generation Of Fans Through Games 

James Draper, CEO at Bidstack & Leonie Fabisch, Director, Global Gaming at SPORTFIVE, discuss how sports brands can engage a new generation of fans through games. 

Video games are the most popular form of entertainment on the planet and are set to generate $187.7 billion from consumer spending in 2023. That’s enough to buy Manchester United 31 times (assuming it’s actually for sale), or about 15 times the annual revenue of the NFL. This figure excludes advertising revenues, which exceed a further $100 billion in mobile games alone.  

The audiences on offer are astoundingly large. It’s estimated that 79% of the total online population engages with video games, while the global esports audience has grown past half a billion in 2022. 

It’s beyond the numbers, though, that the potential importance of gaming for sports brands and rights holders is most clearly visible. This lies in gaming’s ability to reach the next generation of fans – whatever this fandom may look like – and engage them across multiple touchpoints in ways that just aren’t achievable through other forms of media.

Creating new channels

If utilised effectively, games can engage fans outside of more traditional avenues such as on matchdays or via TV and social media. Fandom means different things to different people in our globalised world. From playing as your club on EA Sports FC (formerly FIFA) and following on socials, to travelling to Stoke on a wet and windy Tuesday night in January, there are levels to this game. But they all have value.

This is evident in the way that household name football brands like Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain have made forays into esports, creating a new touchpoint with current and prospective fans. In many ways esports mirrors more traditional sports sponsorship, providing physical and virtual opportunities for brand placements and partnerships.

The reach of esports content is also greatly amplified by streaming sites such as Twitch which provide a way to reach not only gamers, but spectators too. Last year, Twitch viewers alone watched more than 22 billion hours of content

– and that’s not without taking into account other important platforms like YouTube and Facebook.

“Fandom means different things to different people in our globalised world”

Cutting through to the next generation of sports fans

Really, all of this is about meeting your future fans where they spend their time. A recent Newzoo report claims that Gen Z spends 12.2 hours per week playing video games and exploring virtual worlds. That’s more time than they spend watching broadcast TV or subscription services.

While some of the same audience may be reachable elsewhere, it’s increasingly unlikely that they’re engaged with formats like linear TV or even social media beyond TikTok and Snap. And what makes gaming environments so unique is that they’re by their nature engaging – in the vast majority of games very little will happen if the player isn’t actively in control and paying attention. On the flipside, more passive advertising spaces can suffer from target audiences splitting their attention with their phone or another second-screen device.

It’s clear that younger fans have different preferences when it comes to the way they consume entertainment, and ultimately, sports. So finding ways to engage with them in games is a must. This can be achieved through a number of avenues:

Traditional gaming ads

Mobile games have long been a powerhouse of advertising formats, though the majority of adverts are used to direct users from one game to another. However, there are brand-friendly ways to advertise within mobile games, including rewarded video – where a user opts to watch an ad in return for an in-game reward – and playable ads, which could be a football club-branded minigame which unlocks a voucher code for a replica kit.

Because the mobile games ecosystem is built on user acquisition through advertising, a huge amount of user data is available to help sports brands analyse and understand their audiences deeply, as well as measure the success of their ads.

In-game advertising

In-game, or ‘intrinsic in-game’, ads aim to make use of the advertising spaces already available within video games.

Because in-game ads are part of the fabric of the game and can even improve immersion, they are gradually extending from mobile into premium PC and console titles which would previously not have accepted advertising content. While many of the same users are also reachable on mobile devices, the larger-screen content offers a new dimension to get your message across.

The best examples of this are often within sports games like the legendary cross-platform management sim, Football Manager, where brands are shown on pitch side hoardings. The idea is to make these ads feel as real as possible, helping further immerse the player in the game by seeing genuine brands they can relate to, just like in real life.

A recent example of an in-game advertising campaign saw OneFootball – an app that shows football live scores – have placements across four different mobile games. These were Football Manager 2022, Top Eleven, Football Cup 2021 and Soccer Stars, racking up 9.5 million impressions and over 22,000 hours of viewability across the various games.

Developer/brand partnerships

Sports companies can also sign licensing deals with developers to have their brands featured in-game across mobile, PC, console and even virtual reality games. The kicker is that this doesn’t need to be a sports game at all, as shown by the ways the NFL and Nike have both partnered with Fortnite on cosmetic items such as in-game team uniforms.

Some sporting brands have even partnered with developers to create special branded experiences in virtual worlds like Roblox, such as NASCAR, the Australian Open and UEFA. While these deals can be extremely impactful, they’re also relatively time-intensive and pricey and so are generally a more realistic fit for large competitions and clubs.

The opportunity

All of the above is leading gradually to an even greater opportunity for sports rights holders and brands – creating a mirror between the real and virtual worlds. One of the first iterations of this will be seen in the upcoming edition of the officially licensed VR game, NFL PRO ERA, where the Washington Commanders will manage and control their own advertising inventory at the virtual FedExField.

Eventually, this technology could extend to dynamically changing players’ footwear when they sign a new boot deal, serving targeted messages to players who win the league while playing as your club, or simply showing entirely different branding to players based on their location in the world. The possibilities are essentially limitless.

Overall, gaming offers an unparalleled gateway for sports rights holders and brands to engage the next generation of their fans – whatever this fandom may look like.