Better TikTok than long sports broadcasts: Young people are hardly interested in sports anymore. The results of a study are worrying for the sports industry.
Imagine it’s the Olympic Games – and nobody’s looking anymore. This grim scenario is looming, if a recent study by scientists is to be believed. The Institute for Generation Research from Augsburg found in a study that sport is already quite uninteresting for young people.
From 70 to 40 percent: significantly less interest
It was once a social event when, for example, the German national soccer team competed in a World Cup or European Championship game. The family then sat together in the living room and rooted for the German team. Today? Does it look like this: only a minority of the generation of 16-28 year olds watch when top-class sport is shown on TV.
The study, in which a total of a good 1,000 people between the ages of 16 and 64 were questioned, comes to the following conclusion: from the generation over 50 and 60 years old, around 70 percent of all people say they “like to watch sports on TV”. , say the representatives from the so-called “Generation Z” – these are those 16 to 28 year olds – only 40 percent like to watch sports on TV.
Generation Z – “Olympia, no thanks!”
Even more worrying for both sports managers and TV representatives: From Generation Z, only 26 percent of all those surveyed said they watched the Olympic Games on TV. This is surprisingly more among older people: over 71 percent.
What is changing in our society? Of course, we have all known for a long time that younger people display completely different media behavior than older people. Daily newspapers have experienced this painfully in the past, and their circulation has fallen dramatically. However, this was also noticed by TV and radio producers, who relied on background reporting and the transmission of information with depth.
Prefer second info as a background
Such programs suffered enormous rating losses among the younger generation. Young people and young adults like short information snippets. The Augsburg Institute for Generation Research – a privately funded institution whose independence is difficult to assess – found out that the 20-second shots from providers such as TikTok are particularly up to date among younger people.
Translated, all of this also means for football: The conventional 90 minutes on the pitch and in front of the screen are far too long for the younger generation. “We are increasingly recognizing an attention deficit over such a long distance,” says institute director Rüdiger Maas. His people believe that 90 minutes of football is boring for young people.
USA: 20-minute kick with a lot of show
A message that recently spilled over to us from the USA fits in with this. Across the pond is a new type of football, “Kings Football” on the rise. Twice 20 minutes on a small field with only seven players on each side and lots of breaks that are filled with entertaining show elements.
And what does all this mean for the quality of general knowledge in our society? Not a good thing if you have to believe the scientists: technical questions about sport are increasingly being answered incorrectly, basic knowledge is being lost.
General knowledge suffers
Of the more than 1,000 respondents, just 71 percent knew how long a women’s soccer game is. Only eleven percent could name the exact difference between the Paralympics and Special Olympics and also knew the venue of the Special Olympics 2023.
Before all readers secretly look at Wikipedia: The Paralympics are the Olympic Games for the physically handicapped, the Special Olympics are the counterpart for the mentally handicapped, so to speak. Incidentally, their 2023 event took place in Berlin.
