How I consume sports these days is mostly through social media- specifically TikTok. If there is a certain game I know I want to watch, I’ll make an effort to find it on a streaming platform like Hulu. Now, whether it’s major news in the sports world or a clip from a game that everyone is talking about, I will see it on my for you page on TikTok. I know in the past, football Sundays were a staple in my house and my Dad would watch football games on Redzone. Although I’m not a huge football fan, I would tune in sometimes with him and my brother because I like the convenience of Redzone, showing multiple games at once but showing the interesting parts of each game. 

I think the way sports are consumed now compared to 5 years ago has changed significantly. Speaking from experience, people’s attention spans have shortened over the years and it’s difficult to pay attention to a whole game without getting distracted by something else. So having social media platforms post clips from games and news that’s happening within the sports world is convenient because it reaches the masses without people having to be watching the news or watching every game that happens. Streaming has also become more popular in the last few years over cable. And because of that, streaming platforms now make it harder to see sports coverage without having a certain streaming service and another bill. 

In the next 5 years, I think it’s going to continue to cater to people having short attention spans. As long as social media is around, the attention spans of people are going to keep decreasing because of the overwhelming amount of information you can take in on all platforms combined. If I could wave a magic wand and make a change, it would be having access to high-quality sports coverage without the restrictions of fees. I think overall sports brings people together as discussions about the game, the players, or the calls during the game can be discussed on social media platforms. But these days it’s hard to be included in those conversations if you don’t have an expensive streaming platform that gives all the exclusives around sports.