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NFL (league + teams) created over 146,000 social media posts in the 2025 regular season, earning 41 billion impressions (SBJ)

• 39% of the posts were from Twitter (or X),

• - 76% of engagement came from Instagram, \

• 41% of Social Value Percentage came from YouTube

Top 5 NFL teams ranked by social media value

1. Philadelphia Eagles (4K posts, 65M engagement, 1.5B views, $63.1M social value)

2. NE Patriots

3. Pittsburgh Steelers

4. Detroit Lions

5. CHICAGO BEARSSSSS

Why is Social Media Important for Sports?

• Revenue Opportunities

• Driving ticket and merch sales, sponsored content

• Fan Engagement

• Driving live tune in

• Highlights 

• Branding

• News

• Audience Data (Quanatative and Qualitiative)

Why is Social Media Important for YOU?

• AGENT: negotating social media brand deals for athletes

• PARTNERSHIPS: negotiating soical media rights on behalf of teams, leagues,sponsors, or social platforms

• JOURNALISTS/COMMENTATORS: promoting your work and yourself

• ATHLETES: Opportunities for additional income and personal branding

• EVENTS: promoting and recapping evnets

• DATA ANALYSTS: analyzing data from social media

• ADVERTISING/MARKETING: social media campaigns

• SPORTS BETTING: real time updates & odds

• RECRUITING/SCOUTING: researching/vetting players & viewing player film

• COACHING: you will be on social media whether you want to be or not

Building a Social Team:

1. STRATEGY

2. CONTENT CREATION

3. POSTING & COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT

4. ANALYTIC

Strategy

- Who are we targeting?,

- Where are we posting?,

- How often are we posting?, -

What is our brand voice and personality?,

- Who are our competitors?,

- What are our goals (when it comes to posting content)?,

- What will we do in a crisis?

Content Creation

- Video/Photo Production,

- Photography,

- Videography,

- Graphic Design,

- Video Editing

Posting & Community Management

• Copywriting

• Platform Management

• Responding to fans and athletes

Analytics

- Impressions/Views,

- Engagements

- Likes, Comments, Shares, Saves,

- Follower Growth,

- Brand Mentions,

- Brand Statement

Building a Social Strategy

• SMART Goals,

• - Target Audience,

• - Social Channels,

• - Content Pillars

• - Repeatable Formats,

• - Brand Voice & Copywriting,

• - Paid Spend

Brand Voice/Copywriting

• Off-Season: Nothing that stands out,

• - New-Season: “We are so back” or “In 2026…”,

• - Tagline: “Can we getta hell yeah?” (Nascar) “Step into the world of the WTA”,

• - Basic: “The Official Instagram of…”,

• - Tune-In: List of upcoming games/fights and where to watch

Media Rights 1: Television - FTA (free-to-air), cable, Pay-TV

• Live telecast, delyaed telecast (e.g., simulatenous scheduling), reruns

  • Delayed: E.g., simultaneous scheduling in leagues, tournaments

  • Reruns: Often once within 24 hours

• Themed Programming (e.g., Inside the NBA)

• Territorial exclusivity: Regional (MLB), national (Olympics…)

• Single-or multi-network agreements

Simulcast

• Transmission of the same program across multiple platforms/channels (e.g., linear TV broadcast + online streaming)

  • Do not take for granted because TV rights are licensed: If there is money to be made, it’s a separate line in the agreement

OTT = Over-The-Top: Streaming

• directly over the Internet, bypassing traditional cable/broadcast/satellite distribution

  • E.g., Netflix, Disney +, Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, even Spotify

VOD

Video on Demand: Live or delayed, Internet or time-shifted TV

Media Rights 3: Social Media

• Hogg, Burch: Cannot take for granted that you can post live or delayed (=any!) clips, even of your own team, on social media

• TNT Sports owns, operates NCAA March Madness licensing rights. MBB

• Teams cannot post any in-game clips on X, TikTok, or Snapchat

• On FB, IG, they can post up to 60” of in-game footage per game, but not during the game.

Teams can post up to two times, max. 30’ footage per post (own or official broadcast

Radio usually entails

 non-exclusive rights

“Radio affiliate stations:”

Team or media rights company produces full broadcast (i.e., play-by-play and [most] advertising inventory sales). Signs contracts with radio stations, which often have (very) limited geographic reach. Radio secures (popular) content, may sell some ad inventory; team secures audience, revenue

ENG = Electronic News Gathering.

Right to record or standalone rights package, e.g., highlights for daily sports bulletins

Some less common media rights (reserved rights) from actual contracts

• Close circuit television and/or theatrical (including Public Viewing Events

• Video Game Rights

• In-Flight/Airline Rights

• Right to Create, Produce, Exploit Soundtrakcs, Albums

• Right to Create Theatrical Motion Picture

Mass Media give sport

• visibility

• regular coverage (to satisfy fan followers)

• advertising and publicity avenue

• revenue

• increase value of marketing initiatives 

• credibility

Sport give mass media

• content

• consistent (regular) audience

• conspicuous (large) audience

• continuous audience

• desirable audience (target)

• live & appointment viewing

• advertising avenue and benefits

Sport needs strong mass media

mass media need strong sport

Revenue/Expense Summary (Penn State Athletics)

1. Ticket sales: $50,557,204 ($44.4m = football)

2. Media rights (incl.conf.distribut.,Bowl unclear): $42,135,642

3. Contributions: $37,002,681

Royalties, licensing: $15,162,017

Penn State Total operating revenues: 

$220,758,927 (media rights = 19%)

NFL: Rev. $23bn

 over 60% media rights

NBA: Rev. $11bn,

about 55% media rights (national + local)

NCAA: Rev. $1.3bn

75-90% media rights

IOC: Rev. $4.4bn (2024)

 over 60% media rights

FIFA: Rev. $5.8bn (2022)

• over 55% media rights

We talk about licensing media rights and rights-holding broadcasters (RHB) because…

event organizers (or NGB’s) typically retain ownership of the rights

Like you don’t “own” a car you rent from Enterprise or Avis

Think of Spectator sport events/competitions as 

properties

• Sport properties are [contractually] defined in terms of:

• Competition

• Scope

• Dates and venues

• Play-off or medal events format

• Who produces the event?

• Approximate number of live broadcast hours

• Peculiarities about the venue [for broadcasters]

• length of contract/contact period

• Audience, audience appeal (incl. demographics, psychographics)

Media Rights Invitation to Tender 2024

• Subject Matter:

 Media exploitation rights (audiovisual, audio, “digital out of home”)

Matches:

617 matches per season in the Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2, play-offs, Supercup

Period for Tender

four seasons: 2025-2026 to 2028-2029

Licence area:

 Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, South Tyrol, and East Belgium

Rights Packages for Tender

 7 live rights packages and 8 delayed rights packages (audiovisual)

Procedure:

open, transparent, and non-discriminatory tendering procedure

Questions for Consideration:

• Which rights are they tendering?

• Why tender live games, why highlight rights?

• How are the assets distributed throughout the week—and throughout different days?

• Which factors might influence the decision to acquire one package or the other?

Takeaway:

Sport property owners try to “slice” the media rights “pie” as “thinly” as possible to maximize their media rights revenues

• And sometimes will make changes to the “pie”—most notably, to game scheduling (a classic example of mediatization)

Rights-holders:

 have the right and often also a requirement to broadcast some/all games in the package

Depends on:

• 
  

• the strength of the rights-owner

• Example: International tournaments