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The NFL, according to numerous reports, faces a challenge reaching Gen Zers, a troubling trend not only for the league but for the scores of advertisers backing America’s most popular sport.
The concerns stem from studies showing that Gen Z has a general lack of interest in watching live sports, although the reasons they don’t watch vary widely.
A 2021 study from Emory Marketing and Analytics Center showed that only 23% of Gen Z described themselves as passionate sports fans in contrast to 42% of millennials and 33% of Gen X. A sizable 27% of Gen Z described themselves as “anti-sports,” compared with single-digit percentages from other generations saying the same.
The study chalked up the poor interest in sports to the first digital-native generation suffering from isolation and historically low civic engagement due to the hours spent online. Emory professor Michael Lewis said in the study, “Part of the lack of Generation Z fandom is due to younger individuals having less intense feelings of group belonging in general.”
A YouGov report last year found that just 31% of global sports fans ages 18-24 watched live matches, compared with 75% for those 55 and over. Instead, the study found younger viewers were more likely to watch highlights clips or interact with star athletes via social media, while a large portion engage with their preferred sports through video games.
In a recent article on Gen Z’s reduced enthusiasm for watching sports, The Financial Times stated, “Explanations for these changing habits vary, from rising ticket and TV subscription costs which have priced younger people out, to a preference for short-form content, or a simple overload of other forms of entertainment that did not exist when older fans got their first taste of live sport.”
For the NFL, a positive finding is that surveys regularly rank the league as Gen Z’s favorite sport. Also encouraging, a Morning Consult survey taken last December found that 64% of Gen Z and millennial women held a favorable view of the NFL, an all-time high among that demographic. The female interest was attributed to the widely covered romance between pop superstar Taylor Swift and Kansas City Chiefs star tight end Travis Kelce.
Overall, the NFL remains extremely popular, with television viewership last year the second-highest since averages were first tracked in 1995. A recent Sports Business Journal article stated the NFL’s popularity is being bolstered “by factors as diverse as the growth of legal wagering (the ultimate fan engagement tool); the expansive growth of NFL on- and off-field content; the geometrically magnifying force of social media; and the additional inclusion engendered by the Swifties.”
To reach younger generations, the NFL teams have been aggressively building their social media presence, with 26 of the league’s 32 teams having over 1 million TikTok followers each. Many videos rack up 100,000-plus views, with those showcasing player personalities in off-the-field moments often going viral.
The NFL also recruited over 50 influencers and creators to “film social content” from the sidelines of the NFL’s opening week in an expansion of its “Creator of the Week” program, according to Ad Age. The goal is to better connect with Gen Z as well as female and multicultural audiences.
Targeting Gen Alpha, the NFL last year aired the Super Bowl live on Nickelodeon, deploying cartoon characters SpongeBob SquarePants and Patrick Star as commentators.
In a just-released study exploring Gen Z’s aversion to watching sports on traditional TV, Horizon Media detailed how further shifts may be necessary to capture younger audiences as live sports moves from linear to streaming, sports betting deepens engagement and attracts new audiences, and lifestyle content on social media redefines what it means to be a sports fan.
“The modern sports fan cares about so much more than the wins and the losses,” Kerry Bradley, SVP of strategy at Horizon Sports & Experiences, told Sportico. “It’s about the experience, it’s about getting to know the athletes, off the field, behind the scenes — these are the values that sports fans and consumers in general want to now act in accordance with.”