In a recent study by Magna Global for the SportsBusiness Journal, the median age of televised sports programming continues to rise. In fact, viewership age for every major US sport is shown to have risen over the past decade. The study shows that the median age ranged from a low of 40 for Major League Soccer up to 64 for the Professional Golf Association.
This doesn't seem like the key demographic television advertisers are looking to target. Certainly this is a result of cord cutting for cost savings and the availability of over-the-top digital streams provided by the network. The result is a significant gap in viewership age between platforms or digital divide. For instance, the Magna Global study reports that there is nearly a 20 year age difference for television viewers of a golf tournament compared to the viewers of the digital stream.
Given such striking statistics, it would appear a best practice in sports content advertising is to use age targeted ads for each platform. Yet, many traditional advertisers continue to push a concentrated strategy of using the same ads for both the televised and digital streams. In fact, ESPN announced last Fall that it would run the same commercials in sports programming on both linear and digital platforms to increase viewership for advertisers. While this clearly provides advertisers the opportunity to reach more people, the demographic profile between platforms could be starkly different.
It's time the advertising community take note of the widening digital divide.
Sources:
http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2017/06/05/Research-and-Ratings/Viewership-trends.aspx
http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2016/08/01/Media/ESPN-ads.aspx