How to Market FAST Sports Content to New Audiences
Whether it’s a lesser-known niche sport or a new FAST channel at risk of getting lost in a saturated market, getting attention is an uphill climb for FAST content providers trying to make a splash with sports, as HRM International Media’s Robert Muzac and Swerve Sports’ Christy Tanner affirm to moderator Michael Nagle in this clip from May’s Streaming Media Connect. They suggest some sound content and marketing strategies for reaching new viewers and getting them to engage.
Make the Story About the People
Ashling Digital Founder and CEO Michael Nagle posits that streaming opens the door to feeling a sense of relatability with sports figures. “Not all sports have their Michael Jordan or their Caitlin Clark or their [Wayne] Gretzky or Aaron Judge,” says self-proclaimed Yankees fan Nagle. “How does that relatability bring an audience in that might otherwise find another … way to find out about the sport or about the players in it, Rob?”
HRM International Media Director of Operations Robert Muzac answers that he focuses on human-interest stories. With his show Lacrosse Legends, he offers two types of programs: clips from recent games, which are designed for younger audiences looking for short-form content, and clips from older games, which are designed for viewers who want historical context. “[T]he older-audience guys like me in their twenties and thirties, they want to know what happened back in the eighties and the nineties. So, you relate the human interest with the current events [and what was] happening back then, and then we just sprinkle [lacrosse] on top of it all, but you make the story about them, and that’s what’s relatable. That’s what people like,” he explains.
Muzac provides the example of a Lacross Legends story on James Ford, when he brought out a box of memorabilia from his attic to share with viewers. “He had won so many championships, so many accolades. You would’ve never have known it, but everyone could relate to [squirreling things away] because we’ve all done that. I’ve got boxes right here,” Muzac jokes. He notes that many people don’t know what lacrosse is—when he’s carried lacrosse equipment, he’s had people ask him if he’s cleaning a pool or going fishing. “But streaming does help a lot. I have to give it that,” he says of growing awareness of the sport.
Treat Social Media as the Discovery Engine—But Do ‘360-Degree Marketing’
Nagle adds that “what it comes down to is good, old-fashioned marketing—good, old-fashioned boots-on-the-ground marketing—to drive viewership.” He turns to another panelist, Swerve Sports Chair Christy Tanner, to ask about the experiences of the independent creators she works with in steering audiences toward streaming platforms to increase viewership.
Tanner underscores the significance of social media engagement, especially for Gen Z, in discovering and promoting streaming content. “[W]e have this research study that we just did earlier this year on Gen Z media habits. And what that found—and this isn’t surprising, but the data really backed it up—is that is Gen Z discovers almost all of their media on social,” she says. For example: “How do you discover audio podcasts? On social. How do you discover video podcasts? On social. How do you discover new streaming channels? On social. How do you discover new sports? Or how do you find sports athletes to follow or new teams or et cetera, et cetera,” Tanner shares. She finds that YouTube is the number-one driver of this discovery, with Instagram coming in second and TikTok coming in third.
Athletes and teams with strong social media presences usually draw more viewership, Tanner says, acknowledging that it’s the best marketing available at this time, even though it doesn’t always work “incredibly well.” Some sports have even experienced better-attended in-person events because of streaming viewership. “So there is, I think a need for—let’s call it, I don’t know, 360 degrees of marketing—breaking through all the noise in people’s lives that you kind of have to be everywhere all the time if you want to gain attention, and there’s an expectation that you will be there too,” Tanner asserts. “So that’s our anecdotally and data-driven experience.”
No Easy Answers for Too Much Choice
As a concluding thought, Tanner shares that based on her tenure running TV Guide Digital, she “can say with 100% certainty that nobody knows what time or where anything is on ever, and they never have. And so we have multi-generation learned helplessness on that front. We just made it so easy for people to turn on a TV and find something to watch, that … they’ve never retained anything.” This predated smartphones—those go-to scapegoats for “breaking people’s brains. They’ve always been broken in the realm of what to watch.” The most-talked-about issue has been helping viewers find content. “So someone should do a deep sociological study on that,” she says. “And I also think it’s very specifically American too, because we have so much choice. We have such an abundance of great things to watch.”
Join conference chair Andy Beach and other streaming media experts in person Oct. 6–8 in Santa Monica, CA, for more thought leadership, actionable insights, and lively debate at Streaming Media 2025. Registration is open!
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