Top Nine Sports Marketing Trends to Watch in 2025

Marketers always have an eye on what's next, particularly in a fast-moving sector like sports and events marketing. Keeping up with sports marketing trends is a critical part of the job for anyone involved in sport management or adjacent fields.

Advanced degrees, such as the online master's in sport management from the University of Kansas, prepare students with the latest technologies, marketing techniques, and trends. More importantly, they give students the tools and networks required to keep refreshing and updating their knowledge of the industry.

From the use of AI and virtual experiences to international expansion and sustainability initiatives, this article looks at some of the emerging trends and current events in sports marketing that are shaping the future of the profession.

Nine game-changing sports marketing trends

This list of current trends in sports marketing highlights a range of emerging initiatives that offer tremendous opportunities for innovation, growth, and deeper fan engagement:

Personalization will define the fan experience

Data analytics—the capture and analysis of vast datasets to drive decision-making—has created significant opportunities for sports organizations.¹ Teams leverage fan data from social media, ticket sales, and other engagement touchpoints to make more personalized offerings. For example, merchandise preferences can be analyzed to generate notifications when new items featuring a player whose jersey a fan has bought are introduced.

As more data is gathered and analytics improve, expect personalization to increasingly define the fan experience.

Athletes are the new content powerhouses

Name, image and likeness (NIL) deals have long been included in athlete contracts, as players and their agents recognize the power of an athlete's personal brand for endorsements and other commercial arrangements. In the US, the NCAA has conceded that its college athletes can sign NIL deals, further illustrating the power and influence of athletes in the modern sports industry.²

All of this speaks to massive potential audiences for individual athletes. Their posts on social media like Instagram are just the tip of the iceberg. From the Kelce brothers' New Heights podcast to The Roast of Tom Brady on Netflix or Cristiano Ronaldo starting a YouTube channel with more than 75 million subscribers, athlete-led content is impossible to ignore.³

Women’s sports will drive new growth opportunities

Women's sports are growing, opening new sponsorship and marketing opportunities almost every day. The Sports Business Journal looked at 1,300 sponsorship deals in women's sports, finding only 48 of them were initiated before 2020.⁴

Popular athletes like Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese drive attendance surges and stellar merchandise sales. Estimates of the marketing potential of women's sports continue to increase.⁵

Strategic partnerships through brand collaboration

Strategic partnerships in sports have evolved to take brand collaboration to a new level. Among the more visible highlights in sports marketing news, in 2025 alone, we've seen ambitious collaborations like the world's largest baby shower sponsored by Bobbie at a Portland Thorns game⁶ and F1 drivers in functional cars built from LEGO bricks at the Miami Grand Prix.⁷

It's no surprise that sports events management is high on the list of sports marketing careers you should consider.

Virtual experiences will redefine engagement

FC Barcelona offers its fans a fully immersive experience called "The Virtual Dream" that allows them to step into the shoes of their favorite players.⁸ LA Rams fans can download "Rams House AR" to enjoy an augmented reality experience when they visit SoFi Stadium.⁹

As this technology becomes more widespread, proven, and affordable, expect AR and VR packages to be a standard part of the marketing toolkit for major league sports.

Automation and AI are streamlining strategy

From using platforms like ChatGPT and Claude to generate summaries and write copy to deploying chatbots to engage with fans online, sports marketers are increasingly using AI and other automation tools to streamline content creation, boost fan engagement, and easily expand into markets where English isn't the primary language.

International expansion of U.S. leagues

U.S. sports expansion to international markets is among the most high-profile current events in sports marketing. American sports and athletes have long been featured in marketing around the world. Now teams are exporting not just their broadcasts and merchandise but themselves as they play league and exhibition games around the world.

Both the NBA and NFL stage regular-season games in Europe, and Major League Baseball draws higher average per-game viewing figures in Japan than in the US.¹⁰ International expansion is integral to the present and long-term future of American sports, spearheaded by the major leagues.

Short-form video content for fan engagement

As the incredible success of TikTok shows, short-form video content is king on social media. From Snapchat to Instagram Reels to YouTube Shorts, almost every app has a platform to support scrolling through algorithm-selected shorts. Influential agency IMG quotes short-form specialist Greenfly's CEO, Daniel Kirschner: "Short-form content is now a primary way that many fans engage with sports … it's no longer just a teaser for live games, it's becoming a main event."¹¹

A WSC Sports report on fan viewing habits in 2025 found that 55% of fans said they discovered new players, teams, or leagues through YouTube Shorts or TikTok.¹²

Premium fan experiences are on the rise

The use of memberships and apps to monetize superfans is one of the more widespread trends in sports marketing.

In Major League Soccer, for example, the New York Red Bulls offer multiple varieties of premium experiences to season ticket holders, who can upgrade their membership to get sideline seating on the field's edge, or access to valet parking, VIP clubs or bars, and members-only player meet-and-greets at half-time of select games.¹³

Similarly, NFL+ offers NFL fans live and on-demand streaming access to every regular season and playoff game, up to and including the Super Bowl.¹⁴ On Location organizes premium ticket and experience packages to international NFL games, the NFL Draft, and other sporting events, such as Wrestlemania and the Ryder Cup.¹⁵

Stay ahead in a rapidly changing sports marketing landscape

Today's trends in sports and event marketing point the way to the industry's future. As leagues grow international fan bases through virtual experiences, automated translation with AI, and strategic partnerships in international markets, we're seeing digitization and globalization converge in sports marketing current events.

A graduate degree such as KU's master's in sport management prepares you for a leadership role in the fast-moving sports industry. Review our career-focused curriculum and admissions requirements, or contact us directly for a program brochure. When you're ready to discuss what the Jayhawk advantage can do for your career in sports marketing, schedule a call with one of our admissions outreach advisors.