The Price of Fame: The Impact of Social Media on Sports

Sites like X and Instagram have long been the meeting places for reactionary sports fans to vent their frustrations, but in recent years social media has taken on a bigger role in some of our favourite sports. The question is, has this change served to benefit the industry or has the charm been sapped out of the games we love?

Darts has enjoyed its fair share of media attention in recent months, but we are beginning to see the noise die down in the same way it does every year. The World Champions dominate January’s back pages, and suddenly everyone you’ve ever met has a dartboard hanging in their living room. You hear the same buzzwords being regurgitated at the pub for a good month or so, until eventually everyone goes back to reality, and the trip to Ally Pally that your mates nearly booked gets scrapped. Darts has become an annual trend and it’s taking away from the game. One month of media attention followed by eleven months of radio silence makes a highly skillful game that ought to command respect look like a gimmick. What has helped to grow the sport organically is the rise of players like Luke Littler and Fallon Sherrock who don’t fit the darts stereotype. In tournaments typically overrun with overweight, middle-aged men, seeing a woman reach the quarter-finals of the Grand Slam and a seventeen-year-old win the competition has captivated a new audience. If the PDC is to capitalise on this opportunity to grow the sport, it needs to advertise the sport on social media year-round with its stars at the forefront of the campaign.

A sport that has been devastated by social media is boxing. Professional boxers commit everything to their craft and put their lives on the line every time they step in the ring, all in the pursuit of glory. While some may consider it brutish, there is truly something honourable about anyone who is prepared to go to these lengths to master their passion. The birth of influencer boxing matches has sadly ripped this core value from the heart of the sport. Many of the biggest bouts are now ticket-selling exercises between two untrained celebrities who consider their dying careers more important than their dignity. Granted, social media has brought boxing more commercial success than anyone could have ever imagined, but it has alienated the core fanbase from the new generation of followers. Boxing purists can’t believe what has happened to their sport, whilst the new wave of fans just want to see their favourite TikTokers knock seven bells out of each other. With such a split between the consumers, it’s nigh on impossible to please everyone, making the direction of boxing uncertain going forward.

It is undeniably a good thing that more people are being exposed to new sports, but if advertisers are to make use of social media, they need to do their due diligence in keeping the spirit of the games alive. Chess is a good example of this; the community has doubled since the pandemic without any friction between old and new fans. This growth has increased revenue substantially and upped the viewership of professional tournaments. If darts and boxing were to follow suit, we could really see them flourish and overcome the challenges they currently face.

Image from Wikimedia Commons