Over the past few weeks of Upfront season, sport has been front and centre of the narrative.
From Uber to Disney, from News Corp to Nine, everybody seems to have an opinion on how media, and brands, can capitalise on Australia’s growing sports audience.
Just look at the headlines, and the investment. Disney is expanding ESPN across Disney+, with 14,000 live events a year and addressable advertising opportunities around live sport. SBS has put the FIFA World Cup and its broader live sports proposition at the heart of its 2026 offering.
Even without live sport capabilities, News Corp emphasised the power of their sports audience. Meanwhile, Nine has just extended its exclusive English Premier League rights through to 2033/34, and Uber spoke about how live sport events such as the Super Bowl are increasing ride rates around the world.
In 2026, sport has become the catalyst for media companies’ go-to-market proposition in Australia. This is because live sports do something increasingly rare in modern media: they provide reach, engagement and relevance. All at the same time.
The power of live
An on-field drama unfolds. A goal crosses the line or a try is scored. A split-second piece of individual magic turns the tide of a game. Millions of Australians are suddenly captivated by the same moment at the same time, talking about the same conversation and caring about what happens next.
This shared experience is extraordinarily potent in creating urgency and driving emotion. It fosters a desire to connect with others and relive the moment in the days and weeks that follow. For advertisers, this creates massive opportunities to drive brand connection and customer intent.
If live moments set the scene, the ecosystem around it tells the full story: clips, highlights, analyses, interviews, podcasts, memes, creator debates and official club content.
One moment can easily generate seven days of engagement. But that seven-day cycle doesn’t make the live viewing experience less important. It makes it more important. Without the live moment, what exactly is everyone talking about?
Increasing viewership
In a world of algorithm-inspired doomscrolling, social media addiction and falling linear TV numbers, there’s something reassuring in the fact that total sports viewing just keeps shattering records. I see it every day in the DAZN Media+ stats. Total viewing hours across Kayo SPORTS rose 12 per cent year-on-year in FY26. This was powered by an over 8 per cent rise in average weekly unique viewers.
AFL, NRL, BBL, Test Cricket – all achieved record streaming numbers across our platforms in their most recent seasons.
And Australia’s sports audience isn’t just getting bigger, it’s going deeper. Hours viewed per Kayosubscriber increased 5.7 per cent. They’re also going wider, extending reach beyond the broadcast. Kayo‘s social accounts recorded a 201 per cent increase year-on-year. Social video views jumped 557 per cent. Overall social engagement increased 373 per cent.
For brands, this illustrates the modern sports opportunity in a nutshell. The live broadcast isn’t competing with social or competing with creators, it’s feeding it. Unlike what some media companies may suggest, brands shouldn’t think of choosing between live sport and everything around it. Instead, they should be using the credibility and immediacy of live to unlock everything around it.
Sports broadening audience proposition
That distinction matters because sport is also becoming a much broader audience proposition.
Kayo subscribers watched an average of 4.3 different sports codes during FY26. People are consumers of sport as a category, not just fans of one code.
Research from the US shows that social sports fandom has become the cultural on ramp for young people. Just under half of Gen Z (49 per cent) begin their fan journey through content from athletes, creators and viral videos. A third (32 per cent) follow individual athletes, not just teams. And of those who attend live sports events in person, 78 per cent do so for the full entertainment experience.
This knowledge opens the door to something much bigger for brands than buying sponsorships or programming campaign spots around individual matches. It becomes about tapping into the ecosystem connecting codes, clubs, broadcasters, creators, fans and brands.
This is where the advertising conversation needs to evolve.
There are already some great examples of the effectiveness of re-imagining how brands extend their engagement with sport. Take Unilever’s Rexona Rivals for example – an eight-part fully owned sports entertainment series featuring elite athletes from Rugby League, AFL, and Rugby Union on Kayo. It was accompanied by a comprehensive social, broadcast, and retail activation strategy. The results were outstanding: 21 million trailer views before a single episode aired, and a campaign that drove consideration up 8 per cent and familiarity up 6 per cent. More importantly, it helped Rexona smash its sales targets, with sales growth above 20 per cent.
Investment on the rise
Results like this are why more brands are investing in sports. We estimate brand investment in sport will go up by 10 per cent in the next 12 months.
If brand marketers are to continue this momentum and justify this increase, growing investment needs to prioritise media platforms that can connect the dots with sports audiences. Media need to earn the right to play. Not just because they have the live feed, but because of everything else they do around the sports ecosystem.
It’s not enough to be number one for live sport viewing – media companies need to be able to extend fan engagement over the days that follow. They need to understand what fans are doing, watching and engaging with across the week.
That’s why DAZN Media+ is doubling down on growing our full sports platform, launching Club Kayo to help brands engage with creators, unlocking the power of data for brands and clubs with Sports Audience Graph, and extending our reach to in-stadium advertising in partnership with SureVision.
In a fragmented and distracted media landscape, sport is one of the few things left that can make millions of people care about exactly the same moment at exactly the same time. Tapping into that magic is how media and brands continue to grow the market in Australia over the next few years.
By Mark Frain, Foxtel Group CEO of streaming and advertising
This article was first published by Mi3