As part of SPORTBIZ Europe, Johan Cruyff Institute hosted a panel bringing together four industry professionals to discuss how the fan engagement landscape is evolving.
According to a study by Research and Markets, the fan engagement market has grown exponentially in recent years. It grew from $8.09 billion in 2025 to $9.79 billion in 2026, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21.1%. The study attributes this growth to several factors, including the expansion of social media platforms and the increasing consumption of digital content.
At SPORTBIZ Europe, Johan Cruyff Institute organized a panel bringing together four sports industry professionals to discuss the current state of fan engagement and the scenarios they foresee for its future. Here are their key takeaways from the discussion.
Pablo Sánchez Marquiegui, President of the Real Club de Polo de Barcelona
What role does technology play in better understanding new fans?
Thanks to technology, most initial interactions now take place in the digital space. The idea of buying a ticket at a physical box office is no longer as prevalent. To get to know fans, sell them products and services beyond their first ticket, and offer them more experiences, you need digital layers.
There are now many tools that help us understand fans, from the tools provided by social media platforms themselves to others that extend the interaction—or, more accurately, help us anticipate their needs. This means trying to communicate with fans before an event and then ensuring that, once they have bought a ticket, the interaction continues during and after the event, with that final stage also being analyzed.
Ultimately, this is contributing to an increase in the use of mobile apps, a trend that has been underway for some time. The idea is to have fans on their phones and, from there, interact with them more quickly throughout the experience.
What characteristics do you think define younger generations of fans?
I think we often demonize them, saying they are not passionate or that they do not care about anything. The reality is that they are not monogamous in their allegiances. In the past, a fan might have followed football and generally stayed within that world, or supported a particular football team. In fact, they might not even have been a fan of football as a whole, but of one specific team.
This lack of loyalty, or disloyalty, if you like, needs to be addressed by understanding fans better and competing to give them the experience they want, at the price they want, and at the time they want it.
Lukas Dorda, Director of International Relations at Johan Cruyff Institute
What role does technology play in better understanding new fans?
When we talk about techniques or best practices, I would always start by recognizing that everything depends on the club. Is it the same to talk about Barça, a huge club with a global presence, as it is to talk about smaller clubs or even organizations such as the Real Club de Polo, where Pablo comes from? Clearly, they have members of their own and need to engage with them differently.
There are many things we could discuss, but for me, it all comes down to these questions: Who are we? Who are our fans? How well do we know them? From there, we can start thinking about how we can help them and how we can connect with them.
So, it is not about saying that one approach is better than another. It is about understanding where we come from, what we want to do, and how we want to do it in order to deliver the greatest possible value to our fans.
What characteristics do you think define younger generations of fans?
One of the points discussed during the panel was that younger fans have shorter attention spans. However, in my opinion, this is not exclusive to young people. I am no longer a particularly young fan myself, and I notice that my attention span is getting shorter, too.
That said, I would argue that one characteristic of younger generations is that they may be losing their sense of loyalty to clubs. Instead, they tend to focus on individual players or athletes. In other words, they may not be particularly attached to supporting a specific club, but prefer to follow a particular athlete. If that athlete changes clubs or moves to another team, they may switch their allegiance as well.
Walter Joosten, President of Orange Sports Forum Spain
What role does technology play in better understanding new fans?
It is extremely important. I believe we are experiencing a new technological revolution, comparable to the invention of the steam locomotive. We need to understand what has happened over the past few years to see where we are today and anticipate where we will be in the years to come. There is no doubt that AI and technology in general will play a key role in the near future.
What characteristics do you think define younger generations of fans?
Today, I believe fans can process a great deal of information in a short time. The downside, in my view, is that they may engage with content less deeply in the future.
Scrolling is a relatively new behavior, but television came before it. That is how we see things, but just as people told us the same things when we were young, I am sure new fans will adapt to this format, too. Communication therefore needs to adapt to this new way of consuming content, giving fans exactly the information they need—no more, no less—and trying to encourage deeper engagement at a later stage.
Guillermo Fortuño, Head of Stadium Activation at FC Barcelona
What role does technology play in better understanding new fans?
Technology gives us access to a great deal of information about fans today. So, the first thing we need to do is organize all that information, understand it, and then put it to use. One of the points raised during the panel was the need to listen to fans. First, we need to listen and have a platform that allows us to collect all this information. Once we have it, we need to know how to analyze it, because the sheer volume of data often makes it necessary to organize everything before we can use it effectively.
