May 30th, 2022, YouGov
Social media and online streaming have gained increasing popularity as mediums for watching sports over the last decade, but TV still remains king. YouGov Profiles data shows two-thirds of sports fans (64%) in the US watch live sports on TV.
Additionally, three in ten American sports fans (30%) also watch highlights or repeat telecasts on television.
A quarter of US sports fans watch live sports using online streams (26%), and a fifth of them watch highlights or other types of sporting content online (21%).
Plenty of Americans are keeping track of their sports on social media. Over a third of them use the likes of Facebook and Twitter to get their sporting updates (35%).
A small but still significant portion of American sports fans use traditional media such as newspaper (17%) and the radio (21%) to get their sporting fix.
Patterns vary dramatically across different age groups
Live sports viewership on TV is significantly more popular among the older generations of American sports fans, while online streaming and social media have greater traction among the younger audience.
Less than half of sports fans aged between ages 18 to 29 watch live sports on TV (45%), jumping significantly to 64% among those aged 30 to 50 and to 87% among those aged over 51.
Just under half of those aged 18-29 (47%) follow sports on social media, but that number declines to 37% of the middle-aged group and plummets to 18% among 51-and-over group. Three in ten consumers of both the youngest group (30%) and the middle-aged one (31%) watch sports on live streams, compared to just 16% of those aged over 51.
As brands spend ever-increasing amounts in reaching out to sports followers, it is crucial for them to know where to find these fans. Data from YouGov Profiles can offer nuanced insight to marketers aiming to distribute their brand messaging effectively and efficiently.
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Methodology: YouGov Profiles is based on continuously collected data and rolling surveys, rather than from a single limited questionnaire. Profiles data is nationally representative and weighted by age, gender, education, region, and race. Learn more about Profiles.