Gen Z Sports Fandom

Gen Z Sports Fandom: Will Gen Z ever love baseball?

Generation Z, individuals born between 1997 and 2012, is the next critical generation of sports fans. The next generation needed to buy season tickets, to be the television audience coveted by advertisers, and to pass on their fandom to their children. The next generation who will supply sports with its core group of fans.

Every “next” generation is fascinating and perplexing to those who came before. It's partly a matter of the natural aging process, but it's also because each generation matures in a different technological and demographic environment. One result of the different environments is that the “next” generation will inevitably have cultural preferences (fandoms) different from those of their parents.

Gen Z Sports Fandom

Sports are an especially important part of culture because they are often linked to some community: city, nation, or university. This matters because sports are both community builders and reinforcers. When sports fandom fades, it is an indicator of fading community engagement. Today’s post examines one cultural shift between generations: sports fandom of Generation Z versus older Americans.

The figure below shows the fandom rates for Generation Z for the major American sports leagues: the National Football League (NFL), College Football (CFB), the National Basketball Association (NBA), Men’s College Basketball (CBB), Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Hockey League (NHL), and Major League Soccer (MLS). The figure also shows the fandom rates for non-Gen Z respondents. The figure shows the percentage of respondents rating their fandom a six or seven on a fandom scale (a similar figure that reports super fans who rate their fandom a seven is also provided).

For non-Gen Z respondents, the NFL leads the way with a 49% fandom rate, college football and MLB are tied for second at 31%, and the NBA is fourth at 30%. Men’s college basketball, the NHL, and MLS follow with fandom rates of 26%, 17%, and 13%, respectively. The non-Gen Z fandom rates provide a baseline for identifying how Gen Z differs from their older counterparts, and also offer a sense of the established structure of American sports fandom. The NFL is number one, with MLB, the NBA, and college football being the next tier.

Gen Z’s number one sports fandom is the NBA at 32%, with the NFL second at 31%. This is a stunning result given the NFL’s domination of American sports. For Gen Z, College Basketball is third at 23%, and College Football is fourth at 21%, and America’s pastime, MLB, is fifth at 20%. The strength of college basketball may be overstated as the survey is conducted during March and April.

Gen Z has fandom levels similar to those of other generations for the basketball leagues. Gen Z has a plus 2% fandom rate for the NBA relative to the older generations and a minus 3% rate for college basketball. In contrast, Gen Z’s fandom rate is 18% points lower for the NFL and 11% lower for MLB. The key takeaway is that Gen Z is enthusiastic about the NBA but significantly less interested in the traditional top two American sports leagues (NFL and MLB) than older generations.

Gen Z has slightly higher fandom rates for the NHL and MLS than the other age groups. Gen Z’s NHL fandom rate is 18% versus 17% for the non-Gen Z sample, while Gen Z’s MLS fandom rate is 15% compared to 13% for the older cohorts. The non-Gen Z’s fandom rates for the NHL and MLS are suppressed by the fandom rates of the Baby Boomers.

Gen Z Super Fans

The preceding results show the differences in the pattern of sports interests of younger and older Americans. The next question is about the intensity of sports fandom across the generations. The second figure shows the “super fandom” rates for Gen Z versus non-Gen Z respondents (super fandom is defined as rating fandom a 7 on the 7-point scale).

The data shows that super fandom is less prevalent in Gen Z. For instance, the rate of NFL super fandom in Gen Z is 17% compared to 33% in the other generations. This means that while Gen Z NFL fandom is only about 60% of the other generations (31% versus 49%), when it comes to Super Fans, the rate is only about half (17% versus 33%).

Again, there is a split across the leagues. MLB and college football also have super fandom rates of about half the levels of older Americans, while the other sports have similar levels. MLS is the only league that performs better when the criterion is super fandom.

Commentary

The data suggests a weakening and reshaping of American sports fandom. Fandom for the traditional big two American sports (NFL and MLB) is shrinking in prevalence and intensity. In contrast, the NBA and MLS are showing resilience. The news isn’t entirely positive for the NBA and MLS, as the growth in fandom is relative to the combined sample of all the older generations. Gen Z’s NBA and MLS fandom is 5% points lower than that of the Millennials.

For a generation that came of age in a less cohesive social environment with less local media, fragmented and less intense sports fandom is unsurprising. Sports’ position as a key pillar of local culture seems to be fading as the world shifts away from local television and newspapers to social media and online communities. For previous generations of men, local sports were a standard and unifying topic of conversation. This is less and less true.

The online world also seems to be shortening attention spans as young people have become accustomed to ten-minute YouTube videos and 30-second TikTok videos. The games that seem to be suffering the largest declines in interest are the set-piece games, football and baseball, that feature significant pauses in the action. For a generation used to swiping to the next piece of content whenever they lose interest, football and baseball have structures that provide too many opportunities for audience leakage.

Demographics may also be an important factor in declining sports fandom. As America becomes more diverse, so do its sports interests and traditions. The relevant insight is that sports fandom is often transmitted from parents to children. Parents who grew up on soccer are less likely to raise baseball fans. As American families have more diverse cultural heritages, we will likely see more cultural fragmentation—maybe less baseball and football but more soccer and cricket.

Decreasing super fandom is a critical issue for sports leagues. For sports leagues, super fandom may be the key construct because these are the people willing to pay hundreds or thousands for tickets, buy jerseys, and watch out-of-market games. I suspect that a relatively small percentage of fans is responsible for the majority of revenues for most sports organizations (an 80/20 rule).

Back to our leading question: Will Gen Z love baseball? The data, demographics, and technology trends all point to a challenging future. But there is hope. A key aspect of baseball’s future is that it is the sport best suited for families. A day at the ballpark is more family-friendly than a night at the arena. Baseball also has exceptionally strong local fandom—the World Series ratings may be in decline, but the stands are often full. Baseball may not be built for social (and national) media, but it has the best fundamentals regarding local influences. It’s a challenging market position, but the game has strong fandom assets. It might also be the most aesthetically pleasing and one of the best in-person viewing environments (hockey is the other), so fans may mature into an appreciation for the sport.

Lots of challenges, but lots of potential: it all boils down to MLB’s marketing decisions. But that’s a topic for a future article.