Key takeaways:
- Major sporting events are experimenting with new formats, platforms, and creative strategies to push the boundaries of storytelling and distribution.
- Vertical video, gamification, and localized experiences are reshaping how global tournaments drive discovery, engagement, and habitual consumption.
- AI-powered content creation platforms help rights holders scale personalized, multi-format storytelling that expands reach and deepens engagement.
Lirian Santos is a Brazilian football freestyler, model, and creator. Her joyful, engaging content, which blends sport, fashion, and culture, has earned her the nickname “Queen of Brazilian Style.” This summer, Santos will showcase her style during the 2026 FIFA World Cup as part of a global cohort of 30 creators selected by FIFA and TikTok to cover the tournament through fan-first storytelling.
The “creator correspondents” program is meant to bring fans closer to the stories of the World Cup by providing on-the-ground access to behind-the-scenes moments, including training sessions, press conferences, gameday access, bus arrivals, warm-ups, and more. In addition, correspondents will get the opportunity to use FIFA’s archival footage to create content that promotes the tournament.
FIFA is taking a page from the last mega sporting event, the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. The games in Paris were the first time the International Olympic Committee (IOC) introduced its own creator program, collaborating with a host of creators from around the world. The results were impressive: the IOC registered a 174% increase in total engagements on its social media handles and added 32 million new followers during the games.
The Olympics are far from the only event experimenting with new ways to tell stories. Across the industry, major competitions are rethinking how content is created, distributed, and experienced to address changes in fan behaviour, offering valuable reference points for tournaments like the World Cup. Here are a few examples:
Euro 2024 – vertical storytelling
According to an analysis of data from over 500 rights holders, 2024 marked a turning point in sports media: for the first time, more vertical videos were created – 54% of total output – than horizontal. The trend accelerated in 2025, as vertical videos accounted for 63% of total output.
Recognizing this trend, Euro 2024 placed special emphasis on vertical videos of match stories and moments throughout the tournament. Whether on its owned platforms or official social media channels, the focus on vertical storytelling paid off:
- Social media followers on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, X, WhatsApp, and Threads increased by 20 million.
- Euro 2024’s social media channels accumulated 2.8 billion video views and 335 million engagements during the tournament.
- The tournament’s official app saw almost 13 million visits from fans.
NCAA tournament – integrating gamification and betting into the fan experience
Every March, millions of people across the US fill out NCAA tournament brackets in office betting pools. The tradition is thought to have started in a Staten Island bar in 1977, but only in the mid-1980s, when “March Madness” expanded from 53 to 64 teams, did bracketology become a cultural phenomenon, giving fans a rooting interest in games and spawning an entire industry designed to help people beat their coworkers.
In recent years, with the ongoing legalization of sports betting in the US, wagering on March Madness games has skyrocketed. According to data from marketing analytics company AppsFlyer and market intelligence firm Sensor Tower, the NCAA Tournament drives sharp shifts in install rates and usage of betting apps like FanDuel and DraftKings. Key findings include:
- The first two weeks of the 2025 tournament saw a 130% increase in new installs of sports betting apps, compared to the prior two weeks.
- During the first two weekends of the last year’s tournament, total sessions were up 20%, and spend was 60% higher than the two weeks that preceded March Madness.
- Time spent on FanDuel’s and DraftKings’ apps increased 40% during the weekend of the Sweet Sixteen games, compared to the prior weekend.
The Australian Open – AI-powered content localization
Personalizing content through localization has become an expectation in today’s culture. A recent study by IBM, which draws on the insights of more than 20,000 sports fans across 12 countries, revealed that 33% of respondents believe real-time translation technology will have the most significant impact on their sports viewing experience in the coming years, particularly in markets where English is not the dominant language.
The Australian Open heeded the call. Since 2025, the first Grand Slam of the tennis season has been using the first-ever large language model dedicated to sports content to provide fans with voice-over commentary in multiple languages, resulting in record-breaking numbers:
- During the 2026 tournament, there were more than 42.5 million visits to ausopen.com and the Australian Open app.
- The Australian Open’s YouTube channel passed 3 million subscribers, making it the biggest tennis channel on the platform.
- The tournament’s social media channels recorded over 2.4 billion video views (up 118% year-over-year) and 94 million engagements (up 109% year-over-year) in 2026.
- AO social media followers in China surpassed 6 million (up 16% year-over-year) this year.
“We believe in the power of storytelling to connect fans with the sport and the players,” explained Xavier Muhlebach, head of original content at Tennis Australia. “By combining cutting-edge AI technology with our passion for tennis, we’re making the tournament more accessible, inclusive, and engaging for fans around the world.”
Actionable insights:
- Prioritize creator-led storytelling formats to extend reach beyond official broadcasts and connect with younger audiences.
- Design content workflows around short-form, vertical, and mobile-first outputs from the start of production.
- Use AI tools to localize, repurpose, and distribute content at scale across multiple languages and platforms.
