Prediction time: The 4 Biggest Sports Trends you can't ignore in 2023

As the industry settles back into a normal schedule after two disrupted years, EngageRM's team weighed in on the trends set to define 2023.

Four trends to watch

Web3 will mature beyond the NFT hype of 2022, shifting from a short-term cash grab toward genuine fan relationship-building. Streaming's growing share of sports viewing — with Amazon Prime now the exclusive home of Thursday Night Football — will keep reshaping on-screen advertising and innovation. VR, having had a bumpier adoption curve than expected, is still positioned to meaningfully improve the match-day experience. And organisations will need sharper strategies for reaching the vast majority of their database who never come through the turnstiles — sometimes a million-plus fans against a stadium capacity of a few thousand.

The common thread across all four: understanding and acting on fan data will separate the organisations that get ahead in 2023 from those still catching up.