News & Insight
Posted on October 21, 2025
By Two Circles
At Two Circles, we’re privileged to process more data on sports audiences and their consumption habits than any other organisation; our Fan League dataset gives us a data-driven view on the audiences, fans and buyers of any sports and entertainment IP in the world. This has given us unique insight into how the attention economy is evolving and crucially how sports fandom is formed. To help our clients capitalise on this insight, we’ve conducted a deep-dive analysis into the modern dynamics of sports consumption and the results are fascinating.
The last twenty years have seen a seismic shift in the dynamics of the attention economy. The market that all of sports and entertainment ultimately competes in. Supply of content is exploding and for the first time in human history demand, as measured as time spent with media per person, is beginning to plateau.
Human attention is being squeezed but sports is well positioned to win in this increasingly fierce battleground. In this article Alastair Hunt and Imogen Thom outline what’s happening and what we believe sports properties need to do in response.
Alastair Hunt
Strategy Consulting Director
For the first time in history, our demand for media is starting to plateau. Meanwhile, the supply of new content created is absolutely exploding.
We’ve synthesised a range of data sets to model the amount of time the average person spends with media around the world, across print, radio, TV, computers, mobile and so on.
In the US, time spent with these media sources has grown consistently since 2008, the year that the Apple App Store was launched. On average, US adults are spending 32% more time with media now, with mobile the dominant form of consumption. What is more interesting, though, is that consumption time has started to flatten. Between 2022 and 2024, there was no growth at all in time spent with media for the first time ever. And this is a trend that is playing out around the world. This feels intuitively true; there is only so much time we can spend in front of screens in the waking day, but the implications are profound.
Demand: Reaching peak screen time
Supply: 40k years if content
While our demand for media plateaus, the supply of content available to us is exploding. By modelling the amount of time it would take to consume all the new video, audio and text created in any given year, we can see the challenge. In 2008, we created approximately 15,000 years’ worth of new content . In 2024, that number was 114,000 years. That represents growth of 7.5x over that period. If we normalise those two charts side-by-side, we can see how that tension plays out.
And this tension is only going to get more pronounced. The time we all spend with media will continue to level off, while the supply of new content created is showing no signs of doing the same. In July of this year, 9 of the top 100 fastest growing YouTube channels were entirely AI generated (reference: Guardian).Fuelled by new content and formats and supercharged by AI, we project that in 2034, we will create a staggering 200,000 years’ worth of new content.
Demand is plateauing, Supply is exploding
In the modern attention economy, the challenge for any content creator is to be entertaining. In this context, the very meaning of the word has changed, becoming more abstract and more nuanced.
The good news for sports properties, and for many conventional forms of entertainment like music and theatre, is that the deep-felt affection fans have for their IP provides a significant leg up.
Much as attention is being squeezed, affection is in high demand. The number of people in the US who say they have no close friends has grown by 4x since 1990 (reference: Jean M Twenge) and, in this context, it is no surprise that we are craving the types of human experiences that sports and music can provide. 82% of sports fans say they watched as much or more sport this year than they did last year – defying the overall plateauing of our collective media attention. Putting that in the context of the chart above, sport has actually increased its share of consumption from 6% to 10% amongst the global adult population since 2008. Sport is eating entertainment and this is set to continue at a macro level. The challenge for any property is how to keep up and maintain relevance in this competitive landscape.
Imogen Thom, Lead Content Strategist
How Sports Will Win
As a business, we work with properties around the world every day to grow their audiences, turning attention into genuine affection and, ultimately, fandom. We produce more than 10,000 hours of live broadcast and market it to drive tune-in. Across social platforms our work delivers 160B engagements per year on behalf of our clients, and through the 1.6B data records that we process, we drive direct and personalised fan engagement at scale.
A key affection building play I want to highlight though is one that’s perhaps less intuitive. Properties need to lean into the modern dynamics of the attention economy and create more content. The ‘For You’ nature of modern consumption demands it. At a macro level, we believe that for sports properties to win on social they need to double their content and triple their genres.
Double your content
What’s the play:
Sports properties need to double the amount of content they create. That doesn’t just mean more volume for its own sake, but more variety — giving fans fresh ways to engage across different contexts. Every game, every storyline, every player moment can be stretched into multiple creative outputs with creatively distinct cut-through content. And when the truly big moments arrive, goals, trophies, records, content should be multiplied fivefold. These spikes in attention are your most scalable assets, but only if you’re ready to meet the surge in attention with the right formats, on the right platforms, for every type of fan. The “For You” economy will reward it.
Why does it matter:
We are living and trading in the “For You” economy: fans experience the world through personalised feeds where content is not only competing with other sports, but with music, fashion, and culture. In this environment, one size no longer fits all. These are the same dynamics that have driven the 7.5x in content production since 2008. By doubling content, rights holders can create more entry points into fandom, increasing the chances of relevance and building deeper, longer-lasting affection rather than fleeting attention.
Who’s doing it well:
The International Canoe Federation is a powerful case study. Operating across 10 very different disciplines, many of them niche, they faced the dual challenge of low mainstream visibility and high production costs. By redesigning workflows and planning for content multiplication, they have built a plan to double production, increase returns fivefold and did so with only 1.5x the investment. Their approach shows what’s possible: smart planning and creativity can unlock disproportionate returns, even for properties without mass-market visibility.
Add quote from ICF – Speaking to Client about this on 22/10 – they are happy to do this.
Triple your genres:
What’s the play:
Winning in today’s attention economy also means tripling the genres your IP plays in. Genres here are the cultural spaces that IP shows up: everything from food and music to fashion and national identity. By identifying its “white space”, where growth audiences and the IP owners brand overlap with new cultural genres, properties can show up in fresh, authentic contexts and borrow affection from adjacent passions. This can be achieved in several ways. Widening the aperture of content that IP owners are posting about, and recognising that sports content alone is no longer sufficient for cut through. 11 of the top 20 posts from this years’ Masters, the most engaged golf tournament in history, were non-competition moments. Strategic IP partnerships are another effective way to enter these spaces, amplifying your reach and credibility
Why does it matter
At a sports level, 50% of sports fandom are “made by 14” and they’re more or less locked in by 30. It’s no surprise that in this context, building entirely new fanbases is a challenge. But affection travels by association. By intersecting with other cultural spaces, sports properties can meet fans where they already are, borrowing and sharing emotional connection rather than trying to create it from scratch. This same principle plays out in other sectors, from the AFOL (adult fans of Lego) community, where they have quadrupled their adult buyers through strategic and intentional IP association, to entertainment crossovers.
Who’s doing it well:
Wimbledon’s Overheard at Wimbledon series is a standout example of an IP owner doing this well. By stepping outside traditional match coverage and into witty, off-court cultural commentary, the tournament tapped into international audiences and generated over 16 million views and 733,000 engagements. Likewise, the Rugby World Cup 2023 benefited from association with Kylian Mbappé and his IP, with a simple long-lens shot of him celebrating France’s try becoming World Rugby’s most engaged post of the 2023 World Cup.
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