Turning Content Discovery into Business Growth

This is part three of the three-part series on content discovery. Part one examined the primary entry points where new content is found. Part two looked at how sports content stands out in a crowded field.

Not many teams can compete with FC Barcelona on the pitch. But in recent years, it seems that competing with the Blaugrana in the digital space has become even harder.

In January, Barcelona became the first sports organization in the world to surpass 25 million subscribers on YouTube. According to a recent report, Barça also commands the second-largest digital community in sports, behind rival Real Madrid, with 405 million followers across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, and YouTube.

However, unlike many other teams, Barça doesn’t hang its hat solely on social media reach, making a point of investing heavily in its owned platforms. And it shows in the trophy case. In 2023, the club’s official website won the People’s Voice Award for best websites and mobile sites in the sports category at the Webby Awards. Two years later, Barça’s mobile app won the same prize in the entertainment & sports category.

The latest addition to the app and website is Barça Play, an audiovisual hub that offers users access to the club’s entire content ecosystem, including exclusive programming. Following the launch of the audiovisual content, ticketing services and e-commerce will be integrated into Barça Play, bringing services, benefits, experiences, and storytelling under one digital roof, and closing the discovery-revenue gap that still holds much of the sports industry back.

Where Value Gets Lost

The discovery-revenue gap is the consequence of overreliance on social media. While these platforms are invaluable for reach and awareness, they do not provide first-party data on their users. The result is that fans who engage with sports content on third-party platforms remain largely anonymous to the organizations that publish this content. A recent study by audience engagement platform Dizplai showed that:

• 50% of sports organizations offer between 76−100% of their content for free on social media platforms.
  

• The average sports organization has first-party data on 24% of its fan base.
  
• 33% of organizations believe they lose between 1-5 million dollars annually because they aren’t reaching fans directly.

“Reach without conversion is just renting attention,” said Ed Abis, Dizplai’s founder and CEO. “Social media platforms are brilliant at turning audiences into revenue. For themselves. They’ll happily take all the content you can give them to fuel that machine. The question is: what are you getting back?”

The answer is clear: in terms of revenue, not enough. Top Premier League clubs, for example, convert only 0.5% to 2% of social media followers to revenue-generating fans, per sports consulting firm TIAKI. This stands in stark contrast to owned platforms; a recent survey by sports data company Stats Perform revealed that owned websites and apps are more than twice as effective in generating revenue as social media activity. 

Owning the Fan Journey

Fortunately for rights holders, adoption of sports apps is on the rise. A global survey conducted by IBM, drawing on the insights of more than 20,000 sports fans across 12 countries, found that 73% of fans use mobile sports apps, which are valued for providing premium content and opportunities for deeper engagement. Additional findings include:

• Sports app adoption is strongest among younger audiences; 87% of fans aged 18-29 use them, compared to 74% of 45-54 year-olds and only 51% of fans older than 55. 

• Year-round sports app usage is highest for official team apps, particularly in the UK, Spain, and Brazil.

• Exclusive content, unique analysis, and team/player engagement are the top drivers of year-round sports app usage.

What the survey’s results shows, said Carlo De Marchis, a C-suite executive with 35+ years in sports & media tech, is that “apps are no longer side channels; they’re where fans spend the most time, where community can be built, and where loyalty is reinforced. This makes apps one of the most strategic assets a league, team, or broadcaster can own. The industry should treat apps as core platforms – not just as scoreboards.”

The NFL has built its own version of this model. The NFL app positions itself as a central hub for game day, pulling scoring, highlights, breaking news, and analysis into one place rather than scattering them across social feeds. NFL+ pushes the strategy further, using live out‑of‑market preseason games, live local/primetime regular‑season and postseason games on mobile, ad‑free highlights, and NFL Films content as the draw into a subscription product the league owns outright. Every touchpoint that used to live on a broadcast partner’s platform now runs through infrastructure the NFL controls, and captures data on. 

Doing that requires a different approach to content discovery. One that realizes that distribution should serve acquisition, not just visibility. That employs a deliberate strategy to convert them from casual social media followers to fully engaged, known supporters in the organization’s own ecosystem. And that utilizes multiple tactics to guide fans down the funnel, including:

• Using teasers as the gateway: short-form highlights and viral clips are often the first touchpoint. Rights holders can leverage them to encourage signups, registrations, app downloads, and deeper engagement on owned platforms. 

• Offering value-adds: features like personalized highlight reels, exclusive content, continuous programming, and loyalty programs can make owned platforms indispensable.

• Triggering onboarding at the right time: moments of peak excitement – during pre-game or after a thrilling win – combined with clear calls to action can dramatically improve conversion rates.

Technology That Converts

The sports industry has solved one problem – creating content at scale. The next challenge is creating content that gets discovered, stands out in increasingly crowded feeds, and leads fans somewhere more valuable. That journey begins with short-form storytelling, but it should never end there. Every piece of content should move fans one step closer to a lasting relationship.

This is where AI-powered content creation becomes a strategic advantage. By instantly generating platform-native stories that are optimized for each stage of the funnel, these platforms help rights holders turn discovery into engagement, engagement into first-party data, and first-party data into long-term commercial value.

In the end, content discovery is not about chasing reach. It’s about building a sustainable fan funnel: from the first clip that captures attention to the experiences that keep fans coming back on your own platforms. Which is exactly what FC Barcelona’s digital strategy, as the launch of Barça Play illustrates, is all about.

This is part three of the three-part series on content discovery. Part one examined the primary entry points where new content is found. Part two looked at how sports content stands out in a crowded field.