We’ve already seen live sports shift from free‑to‑air and cable to streaming. It’s not just Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime or Sunday Night Football on Peacock. The way we watch sports has changed.
Earlier this year, YouTube produced a watch-along broadcast for the 2025 NFL season opener matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Los Angeles Chargers, letting fans watch with commentary and reactions from popular creators like iShowSpeed. Meanwhile, “Manningcast” sees brothers Peyton and Eli host an alternate broadcast for several Monday Night Football games each season.
The NFL’s move to hand broadcasts to creators shows that attention is no longer owned by broadcasters; it lives wherever culture happens: chat, threads, clips, remixes and memes.
From ratings to reactions: the measurement reset
For brands, this is both exciting and deeply problematic. Current sponsorship metrics are built on viewership, logo exposure, and estimated media value. But how do you measure that in today’s rapidly evolving media landscape? When attention is fragmented, how can you prove the value of a sponsorship?
