Consider a few numbers: the number of social media accounts of the top 65 sports governing bodies and events has increased by almost 59 percent in the past one year. In 2015, more than 20 million unique visitors saw the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2015 online – double that of the last World Cup in 2011. Sports consumption the world over is gradually fragmenting, moving from being completely TV-based to diversifying into online live streaming and mobile-based second screen viewing experiences. The growing number of on-the-go sports consumers has resulted in the mobile becoming the default instrument that drives global sports consumption. As it combines the detailed viewing of TV with the ease of watching it anytime, anywhere, the mobile, it seems, was born to facilitate watching sports!

In India specifically, online consumption of sports has seen an immense rise, with 79 percent cricket fans, 47 percent tennis fans, and 45 percent football fans following these games on various devices. The number of smartphone users in India by the end of 2017 is estimated to be over 330 million, and by 2022 is expected to lead the smartphone user base numbers in the world. No wonder, then, that during this year’s auction for IPL’s broadcast rights, there were more bidders for online streaming rights than ever before. Even Facebook entered the fray and was the second highest bidder with a bid price of $600 million, and yet was defeated by Star India’s bid of $2.6 billion! As this indicates, the representatives from the world’s biggest social platforms are clearly stating the importance they assign to live sports telecast and how they intend to leverage it to establish content supremacy.

TV was doing a great job of providing a detailed sports viewing experience, thanks to the technological advancements which promoted better audio, image, and engagement quality. How, then, did it lose out to the online medium as the channel of sports consumption?

Online Sports Consumption: Empowering Audiences
One of the biggest drawbacks of TV sports viewing was that it was not interactive. Viewing sports on TV was a unilateral experience, which meant only listening to whatever was being played on the screen; the groans and cheers were restricted only to fellow viewers in the drawing room. Twitter was the first alternative screen option for fans to post their reactions on the web at every pivotal moment, thus enabling the user to simultaneously become a consumer

as well as a creator. This new found way of expression was lapped up by sports enthusiasts; fan banter and arguments were now being played all over again, only this time on the digital turf. Several innovative sports apps have also been since launched to introduce many new features, contests, trivia, and games that provide sports fans with much more real-time engagement than was previously available.

Viewing sports on TV was a unilateral experience, which meant only listening to whatever was being played on the screen

The On field Perspective
What is the opinion of the players and the sport management about this massive digital intervention? It seems they are enjoying it to the hilt! Apart from the tremendous improvement it has brought into sports by assisting in decision-making, technology has facilitated fan engagement as well. Almost every team in various leagues across the world has dedicated digital departments handling their websites, apps, blog posts, Twitter handles etc. While massive interest was earlier seen only during a particular season for a sporting event, sports consumption has now become a year-round activity due to the continuous exposure and anticipation created by the internet. From transfer news to injury insights, every information is available for sports fans on the digital domain.

Fan Engagement: The USP of Digital Interactions
With the success of the Fantasy Premier League 10 years back, many new models have been developed that allow users to utilize their sports knowledge, build and customize teams as well as contest amongst each other. While the model has become very popular, it is yet to make a huge impact, considering it still requires an above average know-how of specific sports and is also centered on cash. Interactive fan engagement models such as Fantasy League need to become much simpler and rewards-centric in order to further expand their user base.

Live Social Engagement: Sports ‘Goldmine’ of the Future
While virtual consumption is on an exponential rise, it still lags behind TV in terms of cumulative consumption. A major reason for this could be the fact that watching sports on TV with friends or family gives a similar emotional high to watching it in stadium along with hundreds of others fans. It seems that the human society has been evolutionally wired to watch sports together, and this is where live sports social engagement, or social+gaming, comes into the picture.

A model that has few global predecessors, this unique engagement process, as followed by India’s sports social engagement app Rooter, appears to be the future of global sports consumption. It has a real-time sports engagement feature that also allows you to meet up with like minded sports enthusiasts in your vicinity, sit back and enjoy the match together! Combining the joy of social interaction with the passion fans have for their teams, it is fulfilling the global sports industry’s requirement of a dedicated ‘Sports Social’ app that connects sports fans through engaging features promoting fan interactions. Multi-genre social platforms such as Facebook or Twitter are not cut out for this task, since they have a very wide scope which can create a lot of distraction.

Various reports suggest that the 2016 Olympics was a watershed moment for online sports consumption, with more than 250 digital platforms covering the event through 218,000 hours of dedicated live streaming, which is one billion minutes more than all the previous Olympic games combined! With the world estimated to have five billion smartphone owners by 2020, it can be undoubtedly stated that the Tokyo Summer Olympics, like the future of sports consumption, will be ready to go the furthest on the ‘online’ track.