Key insights
- The Winter Olympics generate one of the biggest attention spikes in global sport every four years. What rights holders and broadcasters do with that attention after the closing ceremony is where the real opportunity sits.
- 76% of sports fans remain completely anonymous to the organisations trying to engage them, costing rights holders between $100,000 and $5 million annually in lost opportunities.
- Winter sports federations face the anonymous fan problem more acutely than most. Geography and venue accessibility make digital fan engagement essential rather than optional.
- Moments spark curiosity and emotional connection. Communities are what extend that connection into something commercially valuable. The two are not the same thing and require different strategies.
- The most effective Olympic fan engagement strategies treat the Games as the beginning of a longer relationship, not a standalone peak to optimise and move on from.
I’ve spent enough years in live television to recognise a genuine attention spike when I see one. The Winter Olympics deliver a huge one every four years: global reach, cultural relevance, and the kind of emotional pull that leaves you so transfixed you only realise (too late) that your tea’s gone cold. Few events command that level of focus, across so many markets, all at once.
But one lesson from working in live television has always stuck with me: attention on its own isn’t the end goal. Without a clear path forward, even the biggest moments can fade faster than we expect. The Games create unforgettable highs, but what follows those highs is where the real opportunity lives.
Moments drive attention. Communities drive fan engagement and longevity.
We’re undeniably brilliant at creating Olympic moments. By day three, we’re all experts in curling. By day five, a surprising number of us are quietly questioning whether ski jumping might still be a career option (or is that just me?) These moments spark curiosity, emotion, and mass participation, and that’s incredibly powerful. The challenge comes after the flame goes out, when audiences return to their everyday lives and that collective energy has nowhere obvious to land.
The next evolution of Olympic strategy isn’t about doing the moments better, it’s about extending their life. For rights holders, broadcasters, and federations, the real value lies in treating the Games not as a standalone peak, but as the beginning of a longer relationship. One built around community, continuity, and sustained engagement long after the closing ceremony.
The anonymous fan problem in winter sports
Our Anonymous Fan Index found that 76% of sports fans remain completely anonymous to the organisations trying to engage them. That costs organisations between $100,000 and $5 million annually in lost opportunities.
Winter sports federations face this more acutely than most. Most fans can’t just rock up to a World Cup bobsleigh event. Geography, cost and mountain venues make digital engagement essential, rather than optional.
If federations don’t know their audiences, and broadcasters don’t know their viewers beyond basic demographics, how are brands supposed to make intelligent sponsorship decisions beyond a strategically placed billboard? The smartest ones are taking matters into their own hands by building fan relationships rather than relying on rights holders to deliver them.
A fan who participates through votes, redeeming an offer, competing in a challenge etc. isn’t just aware of your brand. They’ve taken action. That’s not a CPM calculation, that’s a conversion funnel. And it requires knowing who these people actually are.
From broadcast to fan belonging
Winter sports are visually spectacular but physically inaccessible to many. Digital platforms give federations the chance to put fans on the slopes, at the rink, inside the bobsleigh. Not just showing highlights, but making them feel part of it.
The International Ski and Snowboard Federation extending its partnership with TikTok shows how federations are meeting younger audiences where they already are. The question has shifted from “how do we show this?” to “how do we make fans feel part of it?”
Relationship-driven storytelling between fans, athletes and federations creates emotional investment and long-term loyalty. It’s the difference between someone who watches a two-minute clip and someone who shows up for the World Championships 18 months later.
Content that connects fans to each other and to the sport
The most effective Olympic content links fans with each other, creates proximity between fans and athletes, and embeds people in the wider narrative. When that works, you get a proper value exchange. Fans gain access and belonging. Rights holders unlock loyalty, data and commercial value.
The BBC launching dedicated Winter Olympics content for YouTube marks a shift in how major events are distributed. NBC’s creator collective programme takes it further, embracing creators to speak natively to digital communities and extend storytelling beyond traditional TV audiences.
Creators act as cultural translators, helping Olympic sports reach fans who may never have engaged with winter sports before. The Winter Olympics are increasingly being used as a bridge into new audiences rather than just serving existing fans.
Stories that grow sports audiences
Starting my career in journalism taught me that storytelling isn’t a nice-to-have, it’s how people make sense of the world around them. Stories help us process experiences, connect with others, and feel part of something shared. In sport, they turn individual moments into collective experiences.
That’s why Olympic moments resonate most when they’re rooted in human stories. The film Cool Runnings didn’t just introduce the world to Jamaica’s first Olympic bobsleigh team; it sparked global interest in a sport many people had never considered watching, let alone following. The moment endured because the story did.
Athlete-led narratives (comebacks, rivalries, personal journeys) remain powerful ways to bring new audiences in because they humanise elite sport. But their real value is unlocked when they’re treated as the starting point, not the peak. When stories are part of a wider approach to building connection over time, moments evolve into communities and attention becomes something lasting.
What this means for sports sponsors and fan monetisation
The smartest sponsors won’t just invest in visibility; they’ll invest in participation, fan experiences, and stories that continue well beyond the moment itself. When brands help bring fans together (rather than interrupting them) they become part of the Olympic ecosystem, not just a logo around it.
Doing that well depends on understanding who those fans actually are, and what keeps them coming back. That’s why the most effective sponsorships are built with partners who know the audience and how to engage them meaningfully. Without that foundation, even the biggest moments struggle to deliver lasting value.
The real winners in Olympic fan engagement
The Winter Olympics will always deliver unforgettable moments. But the real winners, for rights holders, broadcasters and brands, will be those who turn moments into relationships, and relationships into communities that last long after the flame goes out.
We’ve spent years perfecting how to capture attention during the Games. The next challenge is figuring out what to do with it once we’ve got it.
Moments drive attention. Communities drive longevity. The federations and broadcasters who understand that difference will be the ones still talking to their fans in 2030.
FAQs
Major events generate attention spikes, but attention on its own doesn’t create a lasting relationship. Most organisations don’t have the fan data infrastructure to convert that attention into something durable: they don’t know who watched, can’t reach those viewers directly, and have no mechanism to invite them into an ongoing community. When the event ends, the audience disperses back to platforms the organisation doesn’t control, and the opportunity closes.
Winter sports federations face the anonymous fan problem in a particularly acute form. Most fans can’t attend World Cup events in person because of geography, cost, and venue inaccessibility. This means the federation’s relationship with the vast majority of its audience is mediated entirely through broadcast and social platforms that don’t share first-party data. Without knowing who their fans are, federations cannot personalise communications, prove commercial value to sponsors, or build the kind of community that sustains interest between Olympic cycles.
The key is treating the Games as the beginning of a relationship rather than the peak of one. That means having data capture mechanisms in place before the opening ceremony, creating community spaces and interactive experiences that give fans somewhere to go after the closing ceremony, investing in athlete-led storytelling that continues between competitions, and building digital channels that allow federations to reach fans directly rather than depending on platforms they don’t control.
Visibility-based sponsorship, logos, broadcast slots, and billboard placements, was built for an era when reach was the primary commercial measure. Sponsors increasingly need proof of genuine fan engagement: participation data, behavioural signals, and evidence that their activation reached people who were actively paying attention. The rights holders and federations that can provide that proof, because they know who their fans are and how they engage, will win the best sponsorship conversations going forward.
First-party data collected during and around major events creates a permanent commercial asset: a database of known fans who can be reached directly, personalised for, and invited back. For winter sports federations, where the next major event may be two or four years away, that database is the difference between starting from scratch at the next Games and picking up where you left off with an audience that already knows and trusts you.
Download the Anonymous Fan Index + Ultimate Guide for 100 tactics to accelerate your data strategy and convert anonymous fans into a community you can work with.
