A Summer of Sports: How do mobile apps and digital advertising leverage the biggest sporting events of the year?

How do the largest sporting events move the global digital economy? The Super Bowl, World Cup, The Olympics, the UEFA European Championship - chances are, one of these events has touched nearly every person on the planet at some point in their lives. These events have the power to move mountains in the form of digital influence. But, if you’re an app developer or brand, how can you leverage these rare, globally-viewed moments to target your audience? Strap on your helmet and shin guards. It’s your turn to play.

Using History to up your Game

The biggest games draw the biggest audiences. The 2023 Super Bowl drew 210 million viewers, the 2022 World Cup saw 1.5 billion, and the 2022 Winter Olympics received over 2 billion. This means a big opportunity for brands to get in front of their target customers, and for ancillary apps and app categories to take advantage of the hype.

Let  history be our guide. 

NBCUniversal, the exclusive broadcaster of the Olympics began ramping up ad spend only four weeks prior to the 2021 Summer, and 2022 Winter games, peaking at 41% and 53%, respectively, with opening week. Budget allocation remained high during the games before tapering off with the extinguishing of the torch. 

While viewership on linear TV dropped 40% between the Summer 2016 and 2022 games, the Winter 2022 Olympics saw their streaming service, Peacock’s, viewership  jump 78% from 2018, including DoD increases of 30% for the opening ceremony for Summer 2021, and climbing to 38% for the 2022 Winter games.

Wearing the crown for the largest US sporting event of the year, the Super Bowl was just as special for advertisers as viewers. During the six weeks prior to Super Bowl LVIII, ad spend across all categories only increased an average of 1% WoW compared to the beginning of the year, however, with ad space running over $7M for a thirty-second spot, brands who produced a big-game ad increased their spend by 6% WoW, with a peak of +16% the week of the game itself.

So, who were the top advertisers and ad categories leading up to the top football game of the year? Flutter Entertainment, CBS (the official broadcaster of the game), and Paramount were the top three advertisers, driving the The Media and Entertainment category to the top spot between January 1, 2024 - February 11. CPG, Shopping and Food and Drink rounded out the top five. 

For the week leading up to Super Bowl LVIII, sports, entertainment, and food and drink app downloads were the big winners as anticipation grew, with the categories up 35%, 6%, and 3% respectively in the US between February 5-11, 2024.

As the exclusive broadcast streamers for the game, Paramount+ led all apps with more than 900k downloads, with CBS taking the 5th spot, garnering more than 280k downloads. Taking the number two and three spots for the top apps by US download growth - X and DraftKings SportsBook and Casino. It’s not a surprise that X broke into the second ranking as anxious fans historically look to social media platforms for real-time discourse and highlights. And, with an estimated $23B in online betting spent during the game, we think DraftKings doesn’t need much explanation. Unlike in other regions, sports betting apps are some of the biggest beneficiaries of major sports events in the US – eight of the top 10 sports apps by download growth for the Super Bowl were for sports betting or daily fantasy.

It’s a similar story for the 2022 World Cup with top category by download growth, in the prior six weeks to the start of the tournament, going to the sports and entertainment cohorts with 36% and 13%, respectively. Photo and Video apps also broke into the top three at 6% with the games and shopping categories rounding out the top five.

The apps that benefited most from the World Cup reflect a different audience from the Super Bowl in the US. Not surprisingly, apps that streamed the games like JioCinema, beIN Sports, Fox Sports, and Telemundo Deportes saw large spikes in downloads. However, some soccer-themed games had a nice surge as well, and food delivery apps were leaders in the Food & Drink categories compared to QSR apps showing the highest growth in the US during the Super Bowl.

Global download growth for the sports category once again dominated the charts for the 2022 Winter Olympics. However, the travel and navigation categories saw a 10% and 7% jump, respectively, as people flocked to Beijing for the games. 

Going for Gold

There’s no time like the present. Whether you call it football or soccer, it’s the world’s most popular sport. In what could be a bellwether for 2024 and 2025  sporting events, the crowds only seem to be getting bigger. 

The UEFA European Championship tournament kicked off June 14th, with expected viewership of over 5 billion. According to our data, Daily Active Users jumped 144% for the Fox Sports App and 180% for ITVX app, as each owned exclusive streaming rights in the US and UK, respectively. Similarly, with pent up excitement and anticipation for a tournament that only occurs every four years, our data shows that while the FOX Sports app downloads rose 60% for opening day of 2021 (the tournament was delayed a year due to the pandemic), downloads exploded over 300% DoD for the start of the 2024 tourney.

And while UEFA 2024 has thirteen official global brand sponsorships across multiple verticals,  including Adidas, Coca-Cola, Booking.com, and Deutsche Telekom, according to our data, when searching for keywords “EURO 24” and “UEFA EURO,” only five seemed to leverage that sponsorship in their digital advertising in June. However, June ad spend for the UK spiked 20x MoM as advertisers awaited the start of the tournament to begin releasing their campaigns. That spend landed primarily on video channels as YouTibe and TikTok accounted for 44% and 17% of total spend across devices amidst the global sponsor cohort, compared to 24% and 7% respectively, of their total UK ad spend.

With excitement and viewership exploding for UEFA 2024, European app category growth, for the four weeks prior to the tournament, increased across multiple verticals. The usual suspects have taken the top spots - sports, entertainment, travel, and navigation -  but games also broke the top five with a 5.7% increase, along with shopping (4.9%), music (4.5%), food and drink (3.6%), and social networking, among others.

With the Olympics on the horizon we took at ten of their global partner brands to see how they were leveraging the games in their marketing, for both the US and France (the games will be held in Paris). 

Between June 26 and July 9th, Omega focused 32.66% of their total ad spend on Olympics-centered advertising in social channels, with 74% and 21% allocated to Facebook and Instagram respectively, with another 21% of that ad share going to YouTube. Toyota, The Coca-Cola Company, and Deloitte also poured significant Olympic spend share into social channels with 2.1%, 1.02% and 4.46%, respectively.  

However, with Paris hosting the games in August, advertisers have been spending even more in France. Omega tops the list again with 63% of their total spend going to ads geared towards the Olympics, again concentrated on Facebook (66% of Olympics spend share) and Instagram (29% of Olympics spend share). Bridgestone Corp. (37%), Intel Corp. (28%) and Samsung (16%) are also notable sponsor partners leveraging Olympic-themed ads vs. their total ad spend in the country. 

Leveraging Audience Insights 

So now you have a massive audience of sports lovers glued to their devices, millions of eyeballs to get your advertising in front of, and millions of potential customers. But, dare we say, you can get more? One of our newest products, Audience Insights, allows advertisers to see demographics, how their targeted audience is interacting with different apps, app categories, and where they’re seeing ad impressions.

 While events draw in the typical sport fans audience, or persona (users who open sports apps more per month, on average, than the general population of smartphone users), our data offers advertisers an opportunity to see what ancillary personas this audience fits into. For instance, the sports fans persona skews heavily male at 86%, with the largest age demographic group being 32.9% 25-34 years of age.

But, what other personas does this audience identify with? The users of sports apps are also 1.8k% more likely to identify with the Gamblers persona, 505% more likely to be Live Event Goers, and 374% more likely to be Moviegoers. And, what top ad categories is this persona exposed to the most? Sports fans are 74% more likely to see ads in the Political category, +38% in Travel and Tourism, and +28% Business and Industrials ad categories. Translation, if your target audience happened to miss any of your ads during these massive sporting events, first – were they ever REALLY a sports fan? – but second, you can now target that audience in other ways.

But, just as important, where are sports fans seeing ad impressions? Facebook tops the list with +25.8%, +26.7% Instagram, 15.8% on X (formerly Twitter), +13.2% YouTube, and +10.2% Reddit before smaller percentages on LinkedIn, TikTok and Snapchat.

What does this mean? Advertisers can meet their audiences where they are, without having to guess. Audience Insights helps brands not only align their ad budgets more effectively, but see exactly where their competition is targeting audiences, and where they may want to focus their strategies for more successful marketing campaigns.

Aura from Unity

Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Lionel Messi - superstars that elevate their team, and their sport. But, they can’t do it alone. This is the power of Sensor Tower and Aura from Unity.

Aura from Unity is a world leading on-device platform that is integrated into the operating systems of over 1.7B devices worldwide. 

How can Aura from Unity’s platform help you maximize your ROI and win the right users during the world’s biggest sports events? Aura’s app discovery experiences meet users when they’re most likely to engage, helping you break through the noise, as they unbox and activate their new devices.

Aura personalizes app recommendations for each user according to opt-in first party data, provided during device set-up, and contextual signals to get the right app in front of the right user. Our experiences are telco branded and displayed as a native part of the device activation wizard, enabling apps and games to reach users from the moment they unbox their new phones and throughout the device lifecycle.

You’ve Made it to Overtime - Key Takeaways

As audiences for the largest sporting events continue to grow exponentially, advertisers and apps have an expanded opportunity to showcase themselves. 

• The exclusive broadcaster of each event, in particular, leveraged their streaming app for new subscribers, as linear television has declined over the last several years.

• For the US in particular, sports betting apps are consistently the biggest beneficiaries during major sporting events, taking eight out of the top ten sports category apps by download growth, during Super Bowl LVIII were for sports betting or daily fantasy.

• While the sports and entertainment app cohorts consistently top the charts during each of the major events, travel and navigation apps have managed increasing growth as fans jump at the chance to see their favorite teams live. This presents even more opportunity for brands and advertisers to target those apps for advertising. 

• Advertisers looking to gain even more exposure can use Audience Insights to help target their existing audiences better, and discover new audiences, with our data showing the Sports Fans persona also identifies heavily with Live Event Goers and to Moviegoers.

• Aura from Unity is a powerful on-device platform integrated into over 1.7B global devices. It can help maximize your ROI and win the right users during the biggest sporting events by meeting them when they’re most engaged, helping you to break through the noise.

Want more insights? You have to play to win. Speak with an expert from Sensor Tower or Unity to learn more.