In 2024, the Top 20 revenue generating Sports IP Owners accounted for 44% of the total market. Last year this number was 40% and ten years ago it was 35%. The Top 20 is surging, with 19 of the top 20 growing versus 2023 and 13 growing faster than the market.
As we expand upon in our analysis of the Super Accelerators of the last decade, growing audiences is fundamental to an IP Owner's ability to grow long-term revenues. The biggest IP in sport has always had an unfair advantage here, originating fans younger than other sports. On average, the most popular sports have +31% of fans ‘made by 14’ versus other sports. These fans also go on to be more engaged - 92% more likely to consume the sport daily - and more valuable, spending +88% on sports vs other fans. The globalized and algorithmic nature of modern media consumption further plays into this advantage by continuously reinforcing early fandom through omnipresent exposure and personalized content loops. This creates a compounding effect — what starts as an early affinity becomes habitual, high-frequency engagement that deepens over time and resists substitution.
The revenue line breakdowns, visible if you select any of the Top 20 in the adjacent visual, provide clues as to the unfair revenue advantage of the Top 20. 70% of the Top 20's revenues come from sponsorship and media vs 61% of the rest of the Top 500. From a B2B perspective there is a scale multiplier. Revenue growth is not linear to audience growth with monetisation potential jumping significantly with scale. This partly explains why YouTube still doesn’t command the CPM’s that major cable does despite audiences and consumption being significantly higher. Cable still provides high-attention moments through scarce ad slots and that drives value. The same thing plays out for our Top 20.
The growth being realised through the unfair advantage of the Top 20 has contributed the majority of 2024’s revenue growth from $159B to $170B. 19 of the Top 20 Sports IP Owners grew in 2024, with only the Hong Kong Jockey Club declining, with the mean year-on-year growth rate of the Top 20 42% and 13% over the last ten years. The equivalent for the rest of the Top 500 is 1%.
However, this only tells a part of the story. Within the rest of the Top 500 are certain properties who are accelerating quickly and should enter the Top 20 within a few years. The College Football Playoffs is one that will do so next year. On average it has taken 77 years for the Top 20 to generate $1B in revenues. The fastest new competition to achieve this feat was the IPL at 15 years. The fastest new IP Owner to do so was the UFC in 28 years. Next year the College Football Playoffs will break both these records, hitting the mark in 12 years. Check-out their Super Accelerator spotlight in the next section for more on their story.
Beyond that, there are plenty of IP owners outside the Top 20 surging. Women’s football properties around the world continue to accelerate with the NWSL leading the way, thanks to its record $60M a year media rights deal kicking in last year and delivering astronomical growth. From TGL to LIV Golf, The Hundred to PTO there is plenty of new IP being created that is also growing revenues at pace. Formula E and SailGP are the only two properties created by a brand new organisation this century that now turnover more than $100M. Whilst a more difficult market for smaller Sports IP Owners, there’s growth to be realised at every level in the market.
Revenue growth versus 2023 for the Top 20
Revenue growth every year for the last decade for the Top 20