BERWYN, PA. (November 20, 2023) – Playfly Sports, the Fan Focused and Data Driven leader in sports media, marketing and technology, today released its latest Playfly Fan Score: College Football Edition, focused exclusively on NCAA college football and its fan base. The Playfly Fan Score, created through exclusive partnership between Playfly Insights and Vision Insights, is a series of studies, reports, data indices and fan engagement insights diving deep into sports fandom, fan behaviors, rankings, and topical narratives. All the studies within the Playfly Fan Score represent custom work with the ability to be further tailored for teams, schools, or brands to further reveal valuable tools that drive fandom.
With a storied history of American popularity, NCAA college football has amassed a widespread audience with unbridled passion and unique traditions abound. As the sport and NCAA at large faces an onset of transformative changes, Playfly Insights dove deep into the attitudes, actions, and habits of college football fans, including a first-ever introduction of Playfly’s proprietary fan segment called the college football “Forever Fan.” This unparalleled fan segment can be used to develop exclusive studies for partners on every aspect of the fan experience.
“College football fandom has shown exponential growth in recent history and our proprietary fan tools and services have harnessed the data in an unprecedented report,” said Playfly CEO & Founder, Michael Schreiber. “Our Playfly Insights team in partnership with the experts at Vision Insights have uncovered impactful stories and actionable data to help elevate the efforts of our school and brand partners.”
Today’s Playfly Fan Score report focuses on college football gameday including fan studies, recruiting and retention analysis, sponsor receptivity insights, and more proprietary case studies touching every corner of the college football fan experience. Surprising new insights covering all aspects of this fandom include:
- College football boasts more than 2x that of NFL annual attendance with more than 42.3 million fans turning out for the 2022 regular season.
- College football has a significantly larger weekly TV audience than MLB (+53%) and more than 2x NBA and NHL weekly viewership combined.
- Younger fans like conference realignment; 90% of 18-34 fans see conference realignment as a “positive (or neutral) move for college athletics”
- NIL is a hit with younger fans as 75% of fans aged 18-34 believe that NIL has a positive impact on college sports.
- The official Fan Score lists, which rank each team according to calculated Fan Receptivity, Passion, and Marketplace values.
- Among Power 5 schools, Ohio State leads the way in Fan Passion and Fan Marketplace with Clemson taking the top spot in Fan Receptivity.
- Among Group of 5 schools, Boise State ranked first in Fan Passion, Nevada led the way in Fan Receptivity, and Air Force sits atop the ranking in Fan Marketplace.
The Playfly Fan Score is based on proprietary algorithms grounded in elements of fandom that can help predict future sentiment and engagement. The specific scoring system has 12 fan-based factors that Playfly has historically been providing as part of broader, impactful analyses for teams, leagues and brands. These industry-leading factors support Playfly’s clients in driving revenue, reach and engagement through sports fans. The Playfly Insights team is actively plugged into a number of athletic departments, tapping into the exclusive tools, custom studies, and data activation plans to support growth and innovation. For more information about Playfly Insights, access the complete Playfly Fan Score: 2023 College Football Edition, and to stay up to date on future editions of the Playfly Fan Score powered by Vision Insights, please visit: www.playfly.com/playfly-fan-score/.
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ABOUT PLAYFLY SPORTS
Playfly Sports is a sports media, marketing and technology business centered around the team, league, brand, and network. Believing in ‘Fandom as a Service’ and focusing on a consultative, data driven approach to REACH, ENGAGE, MONETIZE AND MEASURE FANDOM gives the company’s partners and brands a competitive advantage. Playfly connects more than 2,000 brand partners with approximately 83% of all U.S. sports fans. Through the proprietary platform the business delivers scalable, data-oriented marketing, technology, and media solutions with capabilities including exclusive MMR management, sponsorship sales and activation, streaming, consulting, ticket/premium sales, all along with new revenue-driving platforms and technologies. Founded in September of 2020, Playfly Sports is now home to approximately 1,000 team members located across 43 U.S. states dedicated to maximizing the impact of highly passionate local sports fans. Follow Playfly Sports on social media @PlayflySports or visitwww.playfly.com.
