How to Use Sports Fan Buyer Personas in Programmatic Campaigns

The former president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, once said that sport “has the power to change the world… to unite people in a way that little else does.”

There’s no denying the impact—and reach—sports have in our day-to-day lives. It entertains, inspires, and connects us in ways other pastimes don’t. (Soccer alone reportedly has 3.5 billion fans worldwide, representing 43.75% of the global population.)

But with such a large audience, marketers sometimes struggle to create campaigns that resonate with the right sports fans.

Whether you’re a retail marketer trying to position your product as the go-to Super Bowl snack or a travel marketer trying to attract fans planning a trip for a once-in-a-lifetime sporting event, here are some insights and strategies you can use to reach the right sports fans with your marketing campaigns.

Sports Fan Demographics, Trends, and Insights

The strength of any marketing campaign ultimately hinges on the people you’ll target. Here are some key stats demonstrating how big the sports market is and the types of people engaging with it.

How Much Is the Global Sports Market Worth?  

The global sports market will be worth over $680 billion USD in 2028. This massive industry includes the people, activities, and organizations that help create, support, engage with, and organize sporting events.

How Large Is the Audience for Major League Sports?

To understand how large the audience for major league sports is, it helps to narrow things down a bit. Here’s a breakdown of the most-watched 2023/24 regular season and championship games by US sports fans per league:

• NFL: Over 123 million viewers watched Super Bowl LVIII.
• MLB: An estimated 14.3 million people watched the 2024 MLB World Series.
• NHL: Over four million viewers watched the 2024 Stanley Cup Finals.
• NBA: An estimated 1.56 million viewers watched the NBA regular season, and 11.3 million people watched the 2024 NBA Finals.
• WNBA: A record-breaking 650,000 viewers watched the regular season.

Unsurprisingly, these major events are big business, especially for retailers. For the 2024 Super Bowl, the average American spent $86.04 USD on food, drinks, apparel (like team merchandise), and other items.

Who Watches Live Sports?

The supposed “sweet spot” for marketing to sports fans is millennials and Gen Zers, with people aged 25 to 44 representing most sports media consumers. (According to the data, the NBA had the youngest fan profile, with 56% of fans under 44.)

According to a 2023 survey in the US, the Hispanic population had the highest percentage of diehard sports fans (40%), followed by Black (32%), White (29%), and respondents of other racial or ethnic backgrounds (21%). Of those surveyed, 44% of avid sports fans were male, compared to 15% female.

How Do Sports Fans Watch Sports?

Traditional linear TV remains one of the most popular methods for watching sports in the US, particularly among adults over the age of 65 (82%). That said, sports fans are increasingly streaming TV to watch live sports. According to Statista, roughly 95.5 million people in the US watched live sports on digital platforms in 2023, outpacing the number of traditional pay TV sports viewers for the very first time.

3 Sports Fan Buyer Personas for Programmatic Campaigns

You’ll want to build buyer personas to take advantage of all this attention. 

Buyer personas help you understand who your customers (and prospective customers) are. With this insight, you can tailor your digital marketing campaigns to meet the specific needs, behaviours, and interests of the members of your target audience.

Let’s explore three sports fan personas that can help you better understand your audience when planning your next marketing campaign.

1. Meet Laura: The Fantasy Leaguer

Laura is a young unmarried professional, aged 25-34, who lives in Texas and is still paying down student loans from her college education.

With a household income between $30 and $60,000 USD, she’s starting to become financially stable with more disposable income. At work, she browses NFL and fantasy sports news and is an avid fan of the Dallas Cowboys.

Laura uses search terms such as:

• NFL fantasy lineup
• Fantasy football rankings
• NFL DFS tournaments
• Fantasy football trade analyzer

You’ll find Laura on sites like:

• fantasypros.com
• rotoworld.com
• espn.com/nfl
• reddit.com/r/nfl

2. Meet Jack: The Party Planner

Jack, aged 35-44, is a married professional with children. He’s an avid basketball fan and has a household income between $100–200,000 USD. Every March Madness, he hosts friends at home to watch the games. 

While he has a favourite team, he’s more invested in the tournament and the excitement that comes with it. He browses college basketball news and recipe sites at work. He’s always on the lookout for basketball-themed decor, party food, and new drink ideas.

Jack visits pages that contain phrases like:

• Party planning tips
• March Madness bracket
• Party food
• Easy-to-make drinks

Most often, Jack will browse sites like:

• ncaa.com/sports/basketball-men/d1
• foodnetwork.com
• hgtv.com
• foodandwine.com

3. Meet Rob: The Beer Enthusiast

College-educated Rob is between the ages of 25 and 34. Compared to Laura and Jack, he’s less interested in the outcome of the game and simply enjoys watching sports with friends for the social aspect of it. He enjoys trying new beers and is more likely to spend on men’s grooming and fashion.

Rob’s recently viewed pages include phrases like:

• Craft beer festival
• Best craft beer
• Types of beer
• Beer of the month

You’ll likely find Rob on sites such as:

• beeradvocate.com
• foodfornet.com
• mantelligence.com
• gq.com

Programmatic Advertising Tips For Connecting With Sports Fans

The world of digital advertising is loaded with opportunities. But it’s also filled with competition and lots of noise, which makes it difficult to stand out among diehard sports fans.

Here are a few ways you can capture their attention with programmatic advertising.

Use Contextual Targeting to Reach the Right Sports Fans

Remember all those keywords, phrases, and websites we listed for each buyer persona above? With contextual targeting, you can use that information to place ads on pages and sites highly relevant to your ideal audience.

For example, in StackAdapt, you can create audience segments based on the topics or keywords your ideal audience regularly searches for—like “fantasy football rankings,” “March Madness,” or “craft beer festivals”—or use a tool like Page Context AI to automatically identify and target pages with content that’s contextually relevant to specific phrases or topics your audience cares about.

Connect With Cord Cutters and Fans Who Stream Live Sports

With sports fans increasingly cutting ties with cable or using streaming services to access games that aren’t broadcast on traditional linear TV, connected TV (CTV) advertising provides a major opportunity to target your ideal audience and maximize incremental reach. You can use CTV to target sports fans based on their specific interests, behaviours, and demographics or place ads through premium publishers that stream live sports and shows your target audience likes to watch.

Leverage 3rd-Party Audiences to Expand Your Reach

Third-party audience segments are a great way to reach potential customers that match your buyer personas.

With StackAdapt, you can target NHL fans, heavy baseball watchers, visitors to NBA arenas, and NFL enthusiasts, just to name a few. You can also target fans of nearly any team in a major league. 

To stretch your budget even further, be sure to create lookalike audiences. This strategy allows you to reach individuals who exhibit similar online behaviour to people who have visited your site and completed a conversion, making it easier to connect with potential consumers who are more likely to be interested in your offerings.

Ready to get started? Request a demo to learn more about StackAdapt and how you can use it to reach sports fans with programmatic advertising.