What sparks interest in a sport?

Everyone has a unique fandom story. For me, three separate moments triggered my interest in three different sports.

The first time my parents handed me a racquet during Wimbledon fortnight in 1985. I vividly remember Boris Becker diving across the net as I watched the BBC’s coverage of The Championships.

For rugby, the electrifying roar of the crowd at Cardiff Arms Park when my dad took me to see Wales vs Australia during the 1991 World Cup had me hooked.

My love of golf began after watching Tiger Woods chip in on the 16th hole on his way to another green jacket at Augusta in 2005.

Each of these moments ignited my love for three sports. Together, they form a powerful combination of nostalgia, skill, celebrity, culture and family connection that shape my personal sports fandom profile.

In today’s attention economy, driven by AI-enabled personalised content and algorithms that fine-tune our consumption habits, sports rights holders face new challenges. They are competing not just on the field but against a new wave of entertainment providers each targeting the lifetime value of a Gen Z customer. These digital-native providers use vast amounts of data to understand their audience and how they were acquired.

But what if established sports truly understood what drives fandom? How could they replicate the tactics, experiences, and channels that first attracted their fans and kept them engaged? What lessons could they learn from the drivers of fandom that work most effectively in other sports? And how could their partner brands align their messaging with these trigger points to connect more deeply with their prospective customers?

These are the factors that we considered when developing a new framework to measure the drivers of fandom.

We’re calling it the 10 C’s of fandom and we’re proud to take you through some of our initial findings in this report.

To read the full report, click here 👉 The 10 C's of Fandom.