Between October and December 2004, digital sports agency Aura Sports and research group SKOPOS ran a research project across 17 key sports websites in order to understand online sports fans better. 

Overview of Research Project

• Fans were invited to complete a 25 question survey
• The survey was promoted across 17 of Aura Sports' clients' websites, including the offial footbal club sites for Chelsea, Manchester United, Everton, Spurs, Manchester City, Fulham, Southampton, Sunderland, West Ham and Leeds.
• Over 4,800 completions have been collated
• Aura Sports and SKOPOS plan to repeat this research project in April/May 2005

Basic Demographics

According to this research project:

• 85% of respondents are male
• 47% are aged 18 to 34 years old
• 42% are married/living as married - 38% are single
• 43% have an average household income of £30,000 plus - compared with 33% of All UK Internet Users (source: Forrester UK Internet Monitor, June 2004)

Interestingly, and partly due to the average age of sports fans, this audience is likely to be at key stages of their lives - such as buying a car, looking for a job and taking a long break.

The chart below compares sports fans (blue bars) with All UK Internet Users (red bars).  As you can see, sports fans index higher for all of these categories.

*Source Forrester Internet Monitor June 2004

We can break the research down further to look at how fans respond by sport, and also by the type of sports site they visit.  For example:

• Cricket fans are most likely to be considering taking a long break (41%) - perhaps that trip to South Africa or the Windies calls!

• Visitors to official football club sites are most likely to be considering buying a car (37%) - closely followed by rugby fans at 36%

Again, we can break the research down further, by club, to show which sites would provide the best possible placement for specific advertisers - for example, which websites' fans are the most likely to buy a house in the next 12 months.

All in all, this provides an attractive target audience for advertisers looking to speak with consumers who are at key life stages and, more importantly, about to spend money!

Trust and attitude to advertising

Sports fans have a particularly close relationship with their 'team', and this is translated to to they way they feel about sports websites.

Official football club sites fair particularly well for this question -

• 46% of visitors to official football club sites claim a brand must be trustworthy if it advertises on their club's sites. 

Similarly, fans are more likely to show loyalty to brands which advertise on their chosen websites. 

• 31% of visitors to official football club sites claim that they are more likely to buy a product if it is advertised on 'this' website than those advertised elsewhere.

'The industry has long suspected the power of sports brands online, and now we have the detailed analysis of just how powerful the medium is. What is particularly evident is the trust that fans invest in their official websites. They are viewed as the source of definitive proof on news stories that may appear in other media. They also give brands that advertise on them a kind of reflected halo of trust. And that trust extends to the commercial partners of those sites.”                                       Paul Wright, Managing Director,

Internet usage

• 37% of online sports fans visit their chosen website on a daily basis - 85% visit at least once a week
• 79% of online sports fans use the internet on a daily basis (weekday and weekend) - compared with 45% of the UK Internet audience (source: Forrester UK Internet Monitor, June 2004)
• 99% of sports fans access the internet at least once a week
• 91% of those that responded have internet access at home
• 61% of these home-users have some form of high-speed connection to the internet

To read the Press Release, please click here.

For further information on the research please contact Samantha Seal, at sam.seal@aurasports.com or call 020 7348 5133.