Fandom: Where Sports Meets Culture 24/7
Sports fandom has gone way beyond the stadium. Today’s fans are living it 24/7 – bingeing highlights on TikTok, following players across leagues and teams, rocking jerseys like high fashion, trading cards like NFTs, and even turning to podcasts and betting apps to stay connected.
In this session, Justin Sternberg from Fanatics Advertising will unpack how sports have become one of the biggest engines of pop culture and what that means for brands. From LeBron to Messi Mania to Caitlin Clark breaking the internet, fans are following players like influencers and treating jerseys, gear, and merch as cultural currency. As Pop Culture consistently evolves, there has always been one constant – fandom.
You May Also Like
Beyond the Visit: What the Bayeux Tapestry Tells Us About the Real Value of an Exhibition
The risk is treating an opportunity like this as a straightforward merchandising exercise; just put the tapestry on a mug and wait for the queue to convert.
Retail Marketing Needs to Be More Emotionally Intelligent
The industry spends a lot of time talking about platforms and emerging technologies. But consumers rarely think in those terms.
3 Shifts Publishers Need to Survive AI’s Next Phase
To say that publishers need to run more efficient businesses to survive the next phase of the internet is an understatement. If we do not adapt, the industry risks extinction.