“Bound together by the love of the game”

Aside from a brief period of situational Cubs fandom when I lived close to Wrigley Field, I’ve never understood the appeal of live sports. Learning about Bo Han’s upbringing for this piece gave me a new understanding of the way live sports convene communities where people can truly belong.

Buzzer CEO calls for a shift in sports media: Building community and human connections

by Bo Han

Sports Business Journal, July 12, 2021

Like a lot of immigrant kids, I grew up often not knowing where I fit. I didn’t know many other kids in Nashville who looked like me, and I spent a lot of time trying to find my place. But then I saw Michael Jordan and the Birmingham Barons play against our local Nashville Xpress, and I knew there was somewhere I belonged. Watching MJ make an epic catch alongside thousands of other people at Greer Stadium, sharing the same reactions at the same time, gave me the most powerful sense of community I had ever felt. Watching that game live, I wasn’t just an awkward Korean kid in Nashville anymore. I was part of us — the crowd at the game, watching the best basketball player in the world play Double-A baseball, bound together by the love of the game at a single moment in time.

There’s nothing like the magic of live sports to make human connections possible. But to sustain the vitality of live sports for generations to come, our industry needs to grapple with a hard truth. Live sports viewership is in trouble because we’ve made it difficult for fans, especially young fans, to discover and watch. Gen Z fans are less likely than previous generations to watch live sports regularly and more likely to say they “never” watch live sports.

With unprecedented access to athletes on social media, the strong team loyalties that used to be passed down from parents to kids are fading. Sports media needs to adapt to the interests and behaviors of the young fan, or we will lose out on engaging with the next generation live, where the magic of sport brings real communities together in real time. 

What our industry does next will determine the future — not just for the business of live sports, but for the human connections that live sports make possible.

To save live sports, we need to be fans again

“The fact that we’re losing $28 billion in sports revenue to unauthorized content suggests that our garden walls keep fans out better than they keep content in.” — Bo Han

There is one fundamental truth: Sports media insiders are really fans, and kids, at heart. We’re just as frustrated by watching live sports as any Gen Z fan. Last year, I got a text from my best friend’s dad to tell me that Alec Mills was on his way to a no-hitter. I’d been head of live sports at Twitter for years, and I knew sports media inside and out. But at that moment, away from home and on my phone, I had to Google “how to watch the Cubs/Brewers game live,” just like everybody else.

That kind of frustration drives fans away, loses revenue for rights holders, and makes the community of live sports less accessible for everyone. Worst of all, fans who give up trying to watch live games will never get to share those ephemeral sports moments that bring us together. As a sports fan, you know our industry can do better. I do too. And this is the moment for us to come together to save live sports for new generations of fans. 

Over the past decade, as mobile and streaming technology upended every media business model, our industry responded by distributing live sports in thousands of walled gardens. Both traditional cable models and subscription services for individual leagues or networks are meant to protect rights holders’ intellectual property, which is and ought to be valuable. But the fact that we’re losing $28 billion in sports revenue to unauthorized content suggests that our garden walls keep fans out better than they keep content in.

That’s a $28 billion opportunity to give sports fans the moments they want most.

The challenge for sports media

Loud and clear, sports fans are telling us that they really, really value the powerful sense of community only live events can provide. Engagement with clips on Twitter spikes the closer to live they are. The gaming industry, powered by Gen Z talent and audiences, has made massive and successful bets on live esports content with digital goods or micropayments. And we’ve all seen adults watching a game live on TV, while their kids sit next to them glued to their phones, messaging with their friends about the very same game their parents are watching.

Every market signal tells us that younger generations love live sports every bit as much as young people always have. Early learnings from Buzzer's beta indicated that Gen Z and younger millennials engage with live content when given a platform that caters to them. We just have to meet these younger generations where they find and engage with their community, and in the ways that speak to their hearts. That’s the challenge all of us in sports media have to overcome. We can win and will — but only if we come together across the industry. Saving live sports will take all of us, for two reasons.

First, live sporting events are only possible if rights holders can keep existing live audiences, bring in new fans and earn incremental revenue. But because it’s still hard and expensive to watch live sports, younger generations of sports fans aren’t buying what rights holders have to sell. As an industry, we have to come together to help live sports rights holders make their amazing product easier for everyone to buy.

Second, it’s going to take an industrywide effort to show young people the magic of live sports. Gen Z fans love the same things about sports that we all do: brilliant players, epic plays, amazing feats of athleticism, decades-long rivalries, history-making moments, the thrill of discovering a new player or even a new game. It’s going to take true teamwork across sports media to make those aspects of sports accessible beyond the television screen. Together, we’re going to make sure young people can feel the live human connections that make sports fans into communities.

Moment by moment, fan by fan

I played a role in how the industry has evolved over the past decade, and I feel a sense of responsibility to help the next generation of sports fans experience the incredible enjoyment that live sports provides.

At Twitter, my team made live NFL, WNBA, NBA NHL, NWHL, MLB, PGA Tour, MLS, World Cup and Olympics games dramatically more accessible worldwide. Getting live games and matches on Twitter gave rights holders a big source of new revenue and engagement, brought well-deserved attention to brilliant underrepresented athletes and sports, and made live sporting events accessible to millions of new fans. But even though Twitter is like the best and biggest sports bar in the world, it can only play a fraction of the live games people want to see. That’s why I started Buzzer: to make live sports moments accessible to everyone, in real time, no matter what sports they love or what communities they belong to.

The new era in sports media: Community first 

“Right now, at a pivotal moment for our industry, our nation and our world, live sports can bring people together in a way we’ve never needed more. ” — Bo Han

At Buzzer, we ask people why they love sports — What players amaze them? What teams break their hearts? What fandom makes them feel like they belong? And then, when we know what they love, we let them drop into the sports moments they don’t want to miss, right as they’re happening, wherever they are — in a way that earns revenue for rights holders and builds sports communities that last.

Right now, at a pivotal moment for our industry, our nation and our world, live sports can bring people together in a way we’ve never needed more. And because our industry is built by sports fans like you and me, I have every confidence that we’ll make the cultural shift we need, from building walls around sports content to building bridges to sports communities. 

Buzzer is just one bridge between new audiences and the irreplaceable, moment-by-moment feeling of belonging that live sports make possible. And as our industry comes together as a community of fans, there are many more bridges yet to be built. What’s yours?

Bo Han is founder and CEO of Buzzer, a mobile platform for watching live sports.