The common currency of sport: unlocking the value of every fan connection

By Caitlin O’Meara, Head of Strategy, DAZN Media+

Australia is one of the world's most sports-obsessed nations. But fragmented systems, siloed insights, and increasingly complex routes to market often hold back sport's commercial potential.

Every code, club and venue sits on a goldmine of membership data, ticketing history, viewing behaviour, merchandise purchases, and social engagement.

But here’s the problem: none of it talks to each other.

The result is a data-rich but insight-poor ecosystem. Clubs don’t have a complete picture of their own fans, which makes it harder to show brands they should invest more.

Understanding the whole fan

The next era of sport needs to be built around a comprehensive understanding of the fan. This means connecting data, reach, engagement and real-world outcomes to create a common currency for all stakeholders: clubs, codes and commercial partners.

This is already happening in Australia. As announced at our Upfronts this September, DAZN Media+’s Sports Audience Graph brings together first-party data from more than six million sports fans, combining insights such as viewing behaviour, club membership and brand affinity to support planning, activation and measurement. It’s a win-win-win situation for clubs, fans and brands.

Australia has an opportunity to build on this playbook.

The traditional sports rights model has created enormous value. DAZN Media+ and the Foxtel Group alone invest more than $1 billion annually in sports rights and production in Australia. That investment flows directly into leagues and clubs, supporting the wider sporting ecosystem and helping to fund grassroots sport across the country.

But for that model to remain sustainable, clubs increasingly need to demonstrate something that has historically been difficult to prove at scale: the full commercial value of every fan connection beyond the broadcast, beyond the live game and across the entire ecosystem.

From fragmented data to shared understanding

At its heart, that common currency starts with insight: Who are your fans? What do they watch? What do they buy? What do they care about beyond the game?

This deeper understanding changes how brands can think about sport. Rather than starting with assumptions about who follows a particular code, they can start with the fan, using audience insights to shape a central idea and identify the right platforms and experiences to bring it to life.

DAZN’s global fan research reinforces the opportunity: 78% of hyper-engaged sports fans want content beyond the live event, while 74% say they connect more with brands that add to the entertainment of sport.

But understanding and targeting fans is only part of the opportunity.

The way brands buy sport remains highly fragmented. A brand wanting to build a meaningful presence can find itself navigating broadcast and streaming inventory, code and league partnerships, sponsorship assets, social channels, creators, talent, ticketing, hospitality and stadium experiences separately.

One idea across the sports ecosystem

Instead of starting with individual assets, brands should start with the audience they want to reach, the outcome they want to achieve, and the role they want sport to play. From there, one central creative idea can be carried across the places where those fans actually engage.

A campaign might begin in the live broadcast, extend through streaming and social content, involve talent or creators and continue into the stadium or other parts of the fan experience. Execution changes to suit each environment, but the strategy and creative idea stay connected.

For brands and agencies, that creates a more strategic and efficient route into sport. Instead of piecing together a series of disconnected investments, they can work with one commercial partner to understand the audience, identify the right opportunities, and connect an idea across multiple platforms.

That is where we see the role of a modern sports publisher evolving. Fans don’t experience sport in media silos, so brands shouldn’t have to buy it that way either.

Measuring the whole investment

If a brand can build one idea across the sports ecosystem, it should ultimately be able to understand the value of that investment as a whole.

The ambition should not simply be to tell a commercial partner who they reached, but to understand what happened next and demonstrate the ROI. Did people engage? Did perceptions change? Was there an uplift in sales? What commercial value did the investment create?

We are not there yet. Measuring a fan’s relationship with a sport across broadcast, streaming, social media, stadium experiences, sponsorship interactions and purchasing behaviour is complex. The research and data piece is a minefield.

The DAZN Media+ partnership with AudienceProject is a starting point. The ultimate goal is cross-screen measurement: a single, independently verified number.

But the bigger ambition goes beyond screens. The goal is to create a connected view of sport that helps us understand the fan, helps brands reach that fan across the broader ecosystem, and ultimately measures the commercial impact of that investment.

Australian sport deserves a common currency. Not simply another measurement system, but a way to make sport easier to understand, easier to invest in and more valuable for everyone involved.