Key Takeaways:
-Fans have come to expect elevated experiences, and technology plays a crucial role in bringing them closer to the action.-Enhancing content with innovative tools helps sports organizations showcase athlete achievements, generate global attention, and inspire deeper fan connection.-AI-powered content creation transforms performances into multi-format stories instantly, ensuring every moment has the chance to reach and engage audiences worldwide.
The world's biggest track and field stars will compete in the 20th edition of the World Athletics Championships, which started in Tokyo over the weekend, but one name looms over all of them: Mondo Duplantis.
The Swedish pole vaulter, who set the 13th world record (6.29m) of his career last month, has mixed memories of competing in Tokyo. In 2021, he won his first Olympic gold there, but it was in a near-empty stadium due to COVID-19 restrictions. “I think jumping in front of the Japanese fans is going to bring out something I've never done before,” said Duplantis. This could only mean one thing — clearing 6.30m, which will be a seminal moment in track and field history
To enhance how sports fans experience the event's biggest moments, World Athletics, the governing body of the sport, partnered with Sony. As part of the partnership, Sony will provide a wide range of products designed to give creators and broadcasters the tools to deliver high-quality content, underscore athletes' achievements, and share the excitement of WCH Tokyo 25 with a global audience.
Bringing the Artistry of Sport to Life
These tools include cutting-edge cameras that allow professionals to capture the intensity and artistry of the sport. Graham Maunder, an award-winning director of photography (DoP) who has covered 9 Olympic Games over 40 years for NBC, used Sony's cameras at the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Nanjing, China, earlier this year, and raved about “the quality and the cinematic look of the pictures.”
The same cinematic look was on full display at the 2025 World Aquatics Championships, held in Singapore from 11 July to 3 August. A four-year partnership between World Aquatics and Sony, meant to transform the way fans consume aquatic sports, resulted in 300 million engagements on social media — an impressive number for a sport that typically draws this level of attention only at the Olympics.
“I think the days of international federations being able to sit back and think that just because they’re an Olympic sport the world owes them something are gone,” said Brent Nowicki, the Executive Director of World Aquatics. “Nobody owes us anything. The more we try to keep audiences inspired, (the more) we can keep our sport going on an upwards trajectory in terms of interest.”
Expanding the Sports Spotlight
Interest in smaller sports, i.e., anything outside of the four biggest pro leagues, college football, and men’s basketball in the US, and of football in Europe, has been growing in recent years. In a world that has become more connected thanks to social media and streaming, fans can now routinely tune into sports that were once hard to find. TV networks, for their part, are happy to acquire relatively inexpensive rights, and the results have been striking:
-ESPN’s Wimbledon 2025 coverage was its best in six years. The men’s final averaged 3.2 million viewers, a 26% jump from a year ago, and the women’s final drew 1.9 million, an 18% improvement over 2024.
-The final of the CONCACAF Gold Cup on July 6 drew 3.84 million viewers for Fox, the most on an English-language network in the tournament’s history.
-Over the first half of the WNBA season, ESPN’s telecasts have improved by 10% year-to-year, with three of its top five regular-season games of all time airing this season.
Peter Abraham, former CMO of the LA Marathon and founder of Abraham Content Marketing Studio, calls this “the nichification of sports”, and sees it as a real opportunity for organizations. “Every governing body, event, and league should be thinking about a closer relationship with fans who care,” he wrote. “Embracing the community will result in new fans because the uninitiated will hear about how great it is inside the bubble.”
Elevating Experiences, Strengthening Relationships
For niche sports, creating deeper bonds with passionate fans is all about elevating their content in innovative ways. This requires technology that amplifies storytelling, accentuates athletes’ achievements, and allows sports organizations to create immersive narratives that resonate beyond competition day. The result is greater engagement, stronger loyalty, and a foundation for long-term growth.
AI-powered content creation platforms make this vision scalable. By automatically generating and distributing short-form highlights, personalized recaps, and multi-format stories across every platform, rights holders can transform peak moments into continuous fan conversations. Just like the ones World Athletics will be able to stir when Mondo Duplantis inevitably clears 6.30m.
Actionable Insights:
-Capture and tag every moment: treat each performance as potential content by enriching it with metadata that makes it searchable, reusable, and fan-relevant.
-Build multi-format outputs from one source: repurpose live action into clips, edits, and stories optimized for different channels to maximize reach and engagement.
-Leverage AI to scale storytelling: use automation to ensure fans receive timely, personalized narratives that extend beyond the event and sustain interest year-round.
