When you ask the question, “What is the most popular sport?”, the answer often depends not just on who you ask, but where you are when you ask it. In the USA, you are likely to hear a mix of American football, baseball, basketball; in the UK, football, cricket, darts, snooker; in Australia, cricket, Aussie Rules, and so on and so forth. You get the idea! Further to this, the popularity of a sport is also likely to be reflected in the sports betting habits of any given nation.

Of course, you can find people have a flutter on many sports, but having in-depth  knowledge of particular sports is more likely to inspire a punter to put a bet on it. In the US, you are more likely to see upcoming fights UFC betting odds on a sports betting app than you are in Australia, where you will likely find odds on how the national cricket team will do in the World Cup, for example. With this local or perhaps national sporting landscape established, how do sports then become more popular outside traditional boundaries, territories, states or continents?

That last question does not have a single answer. Put simply, when it comes to sport, some are already popular around the globe. Based on any given metric, soccer is both the most watched and played sport in the world, but there are many others that, though they may not challenge that status, are certainly becoming more globally popular. So, what is happening? From new sports networks covering more sports to greater global access via the internet, let’s have a look at how the media is making its mark for global sports.

Sporting Success Driven By Online Media Advertising And Marketing Models

In the last decade or more, the global sporting landscape has continued to evolve. More dedicated sports networks have come into existence, along with more streaming services allowing sports to be watched all over the world, all around the clock. And that is where media marketing really hits its stride and finds its worth. In the online space, you can find stories on almost every kind of sport, including UK football, US soccer, and more.

As we all know, sports are big business, and global markets are the gateway to making them more commercially successful and financially profitable than ever. With a global market comes global potential. Sports marketing is nothing new, but with the dawn of the online age, the accessibility and availability of sports has opened up a whole new marketing model, and media advertising is now thriving. It is hard to overstate the money to be made by establishing a sport as a global phenomenon – just ask any Premier League soccer club owner.

A classic example of this is the NFL International Series. With franchises marketing themselves and the sport around the world, games are now played in Europe, the UK, and Mexico, with more to come.

Beyond the success of the now globally popular NFL, many other sporting franchises, owners, and stakeholders are using online media marketing strategies to entice and maintain global fans and growing audiences. Cricket has used marketing to establish the Indian Premier League as the most commercially successful operation the sport has ever seen. With this success comes the money to market it even more, ensuring continued success on a scale that other sports are hoping to follow with their own global marketing strategies.

Streaming For Success: Sporting Viewers Enjoying Truly Worldwide Coverage

I think it is fair to say that if there is a sporting event happening, you can probably stream it somewhere in the world, on one platform or another. It’s not just the major league, premier league, or sports with an existing global fanbase that are enjoying this streaming explosion either. With more and more sports entering the online streaming sports landscape, even sports with a smaller following in the traditional sense are becoming more recognised, followed, watched and supported thanks to their online streaming availability.

In purely marketing terms, streaming is not only a way to make sports accessible to a more global audience. Sports streaming also ensures more advertising revenue, more potential for global merchandise sales, and more subscription services for clubs, franchises, sporting organisations and leagues. That means both commercial success for streaming platforms and worldwide coverage for sports that may otherwise have been less viewed, available, or even wanted.

Success, of course, is measured in many ways. There’s financial and commercial success, but it’s also about winning over supporters, some of whom may be new to a sport, or even so devoted to other sports that they are harder to bring in as fans. Either way, most sporting clubs will tell you that without loyal supporters, they are nothing. In the same way, without the strategic marketing and online media campaigns to get those supporters, the aforementioned business success would not happen either.