YouGov covered a range of sports themes in 2025. Some were as straight down the middle as: What sports are on rise?

YouGov’s Global Sports Rankings 2025 (Sports Buzz Report) frames what’s actually cutting through across markets, from perceptions of the NBA among Americans to Aussie Rules football down under – to football/soccer across multiple markets ahead of the 2026 Men’s FIFA World Cup.

Continuing our look at football, we asked what happens if the Premier League goes direct-to-consumer with its broadcasting. In March, YouGov found 42% of British football fans would subscribe to a dedicated Premier League service. Among would-be subscribers, 71% say they’d watch more football — and 32% of fans who already have football-related subscriptions say they might cancel existing services if a Premier League offering arrived.

We also looked at sponsorship. YouGov Sport analysed team jersey sponsorship in terms of on-screen exposure. Our broadcast-focused content didn’t end there: in Great Britain, our survey on the 3pm blackout asked fans if they supported the ban on broadcasting matches at 3pm on Saturdays (with findings featured in The Athletic).

Across the NRL, a “design tweak” debate became a sponsorship economics case study. YouGov Sport estimated the back-of-jersey area delivers about  36 hours of TV exposure per club per season, worth an average $8.8m AUD in NSV per club on dedicated broadcasts.

If sponsorship is about attention, fandom may be more about who audiences attach it to. In Australia, 55% of sports fans say team allegiance is the most significant  reason they follow a sport (vs 21% driven by a particular athlete) — but younger fans are more athlete-driven, with 31%  saying they’d support both their current and a new team if their favourite athlete moved. 

That same logic applied to newer properties. SailGP’s celebrity ownership moment may have been more than just PR: 20% of sports fans say they’ve started following a new team because a celebrity/athlete invested in it, and 19% say they’ve followed a whole new sport for the same reason. 

Meanwhile, growth stories were often tied to format and distribution. In the US, the new FIFA Club World Cup format may have done what rebrands are supposed to do: over half of US sports fans said they were at least somewhat likely to watch (55%), jumping to over four in five (83%)  18–34s. YouGov

And experiments in broadcast presentation got a reality check. The Australian Open’s animated YouTube streams provided a novel approach to tennis broadcasting. While the WiiSports-style broadcasts may not become the default way to watch these tournaments, they certainly got attention. YouGov

Finally, 2025 kept reminding brands that “sport” now includes esports — and that the audience profile is a feature, not a bug. In Australia, over half (54%) of esports fans are under 34 (compared to a quarter of sports fans in general) making the channel mix and partnership playbook materially different. 

We’ll continue our sports research in 2026: a year that will see a three-country North American World Cup, the Winter Olympics and more. 

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