This is a collaborative piece by Robbie White, account director of corporate reputation at global communications firm Edelman.
BBC Bitesize, an online resource which provides support for learners aged 3 to 16+ (my ambitions for this piece go slightly beyond early teen readers, so buckle in), has a page which answers the rather specific question: What are the benefits of commercialisation in sport?
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The page outlines the ‘‘golden triangle’’ – a diagram that describes the relationship between sport, the media, and sponsors, where each corner is sustained by, and simultaneously fuels, the others. It’s a nice vision. But the golden triangle doesn’t tell all.
There is no denying that sponsorship investments should be protected; that’s indisputable. And one of the key levers available is control. By controlling access to games, to stadiums, to experiences, and to the spectacle itself, rights holders create scarcity. And from scarcity comes demand.
The risk comes when that control starts to limit visibility rather than protect value. Formula 1 took a different approach following Liberty Media’s acquisition in 2017, expanding its social media presence and giving teams, drivers, broadcasters, and creators greater freedom to share behind-the-scenes footage and reactive content aimed at younger audiences.
The strategy recognised that modern fandom is built as much through creators and online conversation as through the live event itself. Rather than treating social platforms as a threat to broadcast value, Formula 1 used them to build reach and cultural relevance, helping turn the sport into one of the world’s fastest-growing during Liberty Media’s early stewardship.
Trapped in a past market
The logic of control has built commercial powerhouses. The Premier League’s current UK domestic rights cycle is worth £6.7 billion over four years. The IOC says Olympic partner and media rights revenue reached US$7.7 billion in the 2021 to 2024 cycle, with US$7.4 billion already secured for 2025 to 2028.
The problem is that too many rights strategies still belong to a market of the past. Ofcom says only 45% of 16 to 24-year-olds in the UK now watch broadcast TV weekly. The same research says YouTube is now the UK’s second most-watched service, behind the BBC and ahead of ITV, and that people spent 39 minutes a day on it at home in 2024. If younger fans are forming habits on YouTube, creator channels, and connected TVs, a footage strategy based primarily on restriction arguably puts the future value of media rights at risk.
Sports conversation is now being shaped by creator-led shows, fan publishers, and athlete media. The Overlap, now majority-owned by Global, says it has more than 38 million monthly YouTube views and achieved 2.2 billion views across platforms in 2025.
Changing concerns
Rights holders should be concerned, not because creators threaten the live product, but because over-control moves the conversation to platforms and forums where rights holders are ignored. Even if official footage is too hard or expensive to access, it has no bearing on whether the conversation takes place. Instead of premium footage, stills or pirated footage are used. And this is a clear threat to rights holders.
Despite this concern, change is already underway. The NFL and YouTube now give selected creators and former players official league footage to use on their own channels. In year one, 24 creators generated over 200 million views.
Similarly, FIFA’s 2026 World Cup partnership with TikTok includes a creator programme, access to behind-the-scenes moments, the right for a wider group of creators to use and co-create FIFA archival footage, and live-streaming possibilities for media partners.
Some rights holders, correctly in my view, are beginning to treat controlled creator access as a commercial product. Edelman’s 2025 Trust Barometer showed that 60% of consumers trust what a creator says about a brand more than what the brand says about itself. If you want to build an audience who trust in your brand and in your product, equipping creators with the best representation of that brand and product seems an easy win.
A multi-billion dollar opportunity
So, what’s the size of the market being underutilised? Views of sports content on YouTube grew by 45% in 2024, totalling 35 billion hours. YouTube generated $60 billion in revenue in 2025 and paid more than $100 billion to creators, artists, and media companies. For comparison, the BBC generated just over $8 billion in income in 2025, and ESPN generated $2.8 billion in the same period. And that is just one of the creator platforms available to rights holders. The opportunity is seismic.
Rights holders can monetise creator access through any number of simple models, such as: a whitelist and revenue-share approach, where approved creators use licensed footage and share ad or sponsorship income with the broadcaster or rights holder; a conversion model, where creator content drives subscriptions, app installs, or pay-per-view sales through tracked links, and the creator is paid on performance. In each case, the principle is the same: treat creator access as a structured rights product with guardrails, measurement, and revenue built in.
Scores of corporate, legal, and commercial teams will all need to be across the implications of licensing changes. It needs to be done correctly. Deep, detailed analysis and vibrant storytelling should be encouraged. The central idea revolves around expanding access to the product on the pitch while increasing the number and type of voices shouting about it.
Protecting today at the expense of tomorrow
Scarcity will always sell, but only to an increasingly smaller pool of consumers, which naturally constrains growth potential. Enduring cultural relevance is what keeps commercial rights valuable. Sports owners that confuse restriction or control and ignore the opportunities posed by creators across platforms may protect today’s deal, but they will also slowly choke the life out of tomorrow’s growth.
