WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management
How we will consume sports in the future
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Artificial intelligence will take over more tasks in top-tier sports broadcasting, making the viewing experience more personalized and increasingly immersive. New technologies and societal changes have substantially changed sports fans’ expectations and demands on sports content. A new study from the Center for Sports and Management (CSM) at WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management now shows how audiences will consume top-tier sports content in the future—and the challenges this shift in behavior could pose to top-tier sports media and its production.
How we will consume sports in the future
Watching a major sporting event from the perspective of an athlete in front of the television? Selecting the commentators yourself on the screen? What sounds like a futuristic version of media sports production could soon be standard. As part of the international future study "Top-tier Sports Product and its Production in 2030" conducted by the Center for Sports and Management (CSM) at WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management, 99 experts from a wide variety of fields (including sports associations, media companies, broadcasters, and sports consulting agencies) gave their predictions in two Delphi studies on what the near future of the sports media product and its production could look like. The results show: Top-tier sports could become much more immersive in the future. The viewer virtually immerses himself in a (partly) virtual world during consumption. Moreover, the events produced could be more emotional and better tailored to the needs of the viewers. The younger generation, in particular, is driving these developments with its media consumption behavior and is likely to benefit the most from this development.
In the first study, selected experts evaluated 14 projections on the future of the top-tier sports product using the Delphi method. The method is a systematic, multi-stage approach to assess future developments as accurately as possible. In a second study, another panel of experts assessed 11 projections on the future production of top-tier sports. The experts assessed the likelihood of a certain projection occurring, how desirable it is, and what impact this would have.
The experts came to the conclusion that the sports audience and its preferences could have a much stronger influence on the production of top-class sports in the future than they have had so far. This is due to social changes, on the one hand, but also to technical innovations associated with digitalization. For example, according to experts, algorithms could filter out the individual interests and preferences of viewers in the future, which should make personalization possible. In this way, only content that is of interest to the user will be broadcasted. Fans of racing driver Lewis Hamilton, for example, could be shown pictures from his cockpit perspective more often during Formula 1 broadcasts than fans of other racing drivers. Live data, for example on athletes' performance, could also be integrated into personalized sports broadcasts in the future. In general, according to the experts, viewers will become much more active in the production of sports content in the future. Depending on their needs, they could have content such as the placement of previously scored penalties or the golf swings of certain professionals supplemented and inserted by digital overlays.
In the future, the production of sports content in the media will also be influenced and changed by artificial intelligence (AI). Instead of having live events filmed by cameramen, AI-controlled cameras could record games. According to the experts, increasing automation will make it possible to produce content in a more decentralized and location-independent manner. Accordingly, media production is likely to take place remotely and thus more sustainably in the future, which would reduce on-site staff and thus also significantly lower the carbon footprint. In addition, the experts surveyed in the study expect mobile consumption of sports content to increase. Instead of watching live sports on TV, they predict that the younger generation will mainly watch highlight clips on Instagram or TikTok. Virtual worlds, i.e. computer-supported simulated environments, will also become increasingly relevant. By 2030, according to the experts, an increasing proportion of viewers will experience sports broadcasts in a purely virtual world.
It’s important to note that DFL Deutsche Fußball Liga and Amazon Web Services (AWS) supported this Delphi project financially and idealistically. The conception, methodology, implementation, and content of the studies were the sole responsibility of the research team at the WHU Center for Sports and Management.
If you would like to interview one of the authors of the study, please send a request to presse@whu.edu
Information about the study
Schmidt, S. L., Geissler, D., & Schreyer, D. (2023): Top-tier sports product and its production. Center for Sports and Management (CSM), Düsseldorf/Vallendar: WHU.
Authors
Prof. Dr. Sascha L. Schmidt
Sascha L. Schmidt, Academic Director, Professor, and Chairholder at the Center for Sports and Management (CSM) at WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management in Düsseldorf. He is also affiliated with the Laboratory for Innovation Science at Harvard (LISH) and one of the initiators and leading lecturers of the MIT Sports Entrepreneurship Bootcamp and the Transformational Technologies online course. His research focuses on growth and diversification strategies and preparing professionals in the world of sports for future developments.
Apl. Prof. Dr. Dominik Schreyer
Dominik Schreyer is an apl. Professor of Sports Economics at WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management in Düsseldorf and Director of the Center for Sports and Management (CSM). His research focuses on sports demand (e.g., stadium and TV demand), and he has published 35 articles in internationally renowned, peer-reviewed journals, including Economic Inquiry, European Sport Management Quarterly, Games and Economic Behavior, Technological Forecasting & Social Change, and the Journal of Vocational Behavior.
Dominik Geissler
Dominik Geissler is a doctoral student at the Center for Sports and Management (CSM) at WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management. Throughout the years he spent earning his bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and his master’s degree in Innovation Management. Mr. Geissler studied at the University of St. Gallen, Stanford University, and the NOVA School of Business & Economics. In his doctoral studies, he focuses on the interplay between technology and society that could forever change media consumption behavior within the world of top-tier sports. He also spent three years working with Boston Consulting Group, where he advised clients from many different industries and countries on matters relevant to digitalization and technological innovation.
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Bernadette Wagener Associate Director Public Relations WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management Campus Vallendar, Burgplatz 2, 56179 Vallendar, Germany Tel.: +49 261 6509-540; presse@whu.edu; www.whu.edu WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management is the Business School of the WHU Foundation.