Sport-first or Entertainment-first? Why the sports industry’s identity crisis is just getting started

The sports business has been undergoing a radical change for a while now — not just from analogue to digital, or broadcast to streaming, but from sport-first to entertainment-first thinking.

And somewhere in the middle of that shift, the industry has become confused.

Sport-First: Built on Scarcity, Structure, and Integrity

Traditional sports organisations were built on sport-first logic:

• Performance is the product

• Competition is real and unscripted

• Athletes are accountable to the game, not the camera

• The schedule, the structure, the rules — they matter

It’s a model that rewards consistency, skill, and discipline. It builds legacies, not just followings. And most importantly — it’s what built empires.

This approach created the global giants of football, cricket, basketball, tennis, and beyond. It’s what made clubs into brands. Athletes into icons. Broadcasters into institutions.

Entertainment-First: Built for the Feed

Younger audiences, on the other hand, are engaging with sport more like entertainment:

• They follow highlights, not fixtures

• They care about personalities, not just performances

• They want snackable, shareable, serialised content

• They expect participation, not passivity

This is the world of creators, remix culture, and viral moments. It makes perfect sense for platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Twitch — and for formats purpose-built to thrive in that environment.

It’s also worth remembering that younger generations are simply products of the environment they grew up in. A world of algorithmic feeds, frictionless media, and on-demand everything. They didn’t break the old model — they never really experienced it in the first place.

But… Is Sport Entertainment?

The answer matters — because it’s at the heart of this whole identity crisis.

Yes, sport is entertainment. People watch it for the drama, the unpredictability, the emotional highs and lows. In that sense, it’s the original reality show — but with higher stakes and no script.

But sport is not only entertainment. It’s also structure, credibility, and truth. It exists to determine who’s best, not who gets the most clicks. When we treat it purely as content, we risk undermining the very thing that gives it value.

Chasing Entertainment: When Rules Start to Bend

Look closely at the rule changes in many sports over the past decade and a pattern emerges: Entertainment value has been prioritised — often at the expense of competitive balance.

In football, changes around tackling, VAR favouring attackers, and the general shift in refereeing culture have all made life much harder for defenders — and more rewarding for attacking players.

In cricket, almost every modern format — especially white-ball — has been adjusted to favour batters: Smaller boundaries, flatter pitches, fielding restrictions.

Why? Because sixes, goals, and attacking play are easier to market. They produce better highlights. They’re more shareable – we must protect the entertainers at all costs!

But they also take something away. And what’s lost in the quest for entertainment is often the essence of the sport.

The Confusion in the Middle

Legacy sports organisations have seen this shift towards entertainment — and tried to follow along. Not only through the introduction of new rules but through format experimentation:

- They introduce shorter in-play time

- Add gimmicks to gameplay

- Overproduce content

- Shift focus from competition to character

But in trying to make sport “more entertaining,” they often make it less sporting.

This is the confused middle. It weakens the sport-first product and isn’t built fully from the entertainment first perspective.

It’s Not Sport vs. Entertainment

This isn’t about “old vs new” or “real sport vs fake sport.” It’s about knowing what you are — and delivering it with conviction.

The Kings League and Baller League are perfectly valid entertainment-first formats built from sport. They’re designed for shareability, virality, and audience interaction. That’s their purpose — and they do it well.

Likewise, T20 cricket is a great example of a sport-first format designed to entertain. It didn’t compromise the game’s integrity — it respected the rules, the players, and the competition — but it reimagined the product for a new audience.

Both approaches can succeed and co-exist in the same ecosystem – there’s room for everyone. Indeed these new entertainment-first formats should primarily be seen as extending the category reach of sport, not just taking share away from what already exists.

And the smart legacy sports organisations will be those who don’t seek to copy the new world but collaborate with it. Those that don’t try to retrofit a 100-year-old format to a TikTok algorithm. Instead, they will partner with the creators, the entrepreneurs, the format-builders who truly understand the language, culture, and cadence of this new era.

However, for now there are plenty looking to copy. And that’s when challenges arise as formats seek to blend sport and entertainment without clarity and conviction – creating an identity crisis.

That’s why over the last decade we’ve seen a stream of new formats try and capture younger audiences through the lens of making the sporting product more like an entertainment one – which has often felt like the Steve Buscemi “How do you do, fellow kids?” GIF manifest.

The Real Risk: Designing for the Scroll, Not the Sport

Far too many sports organisations are now designing their formats, schedules, and storytelling to fit a world of constant Instagram scrolling, TikTok swiping, and YouTube clipping.

By turn, we’re seeing more formats that are easy to market, difficult to remember, and hard to see lasting.

That's not to say there shouldn't be a focus on these channels (of course there should) but to what degree should they inform the nature of format creation versus their use for promotion and storytelling?

If sport wants to matter in the long term — not just trend in the moment — it needs to start building formats with a spine that last longer than an Instagram story.

Especially as at some point today’s social world will be tomorrow’s archive.

Final Questions Worth Asking

So if you’re building in sport today — ask:

• Are we sport-first or entertainment-first?

• If we want to be more entertainment-first are we the right people to build that?

• Do our business and content models reflect our choices clearly?

• Are we strengthening or weakening the integrity of our offer through our actions?

It’s not just about audience. It’s about authenticity. And in the long run, that’s what earns trust, attention, and value.