#104 - 2023's Top 15 highlights

Today marks the last Tuesday of the year. To finish the year off with a bang, we thought we would go down memory lane and look at some of the biggest things to happen in ticketing, merchandising, sponsorship, social media and overall business performance. There was so much to talk about but so little time so we whittled down to only 15 highlights. Without further ado, let’s get right to it.

1. The NFL remains the most valuable sports league in the world thanks to guaranteed television deals that could be worth more than $126 billion by 2033
2. Women’s elite sports to generate more than $1 billion in revenue in 2024 breaking the billion-dollar barrier for the first time
3. Most expensive season ticket in the Premier League in 2023/24 could be found at Fulham, with tickets in the Riverside Stand costing up to 3,000 British pounds. Meanwhile, the most expensive season ticket at Sheffield United cost 491 British pounds, or around 26 British pounds per game. 
4. Two of the top five Wikipedia articles of the year are the 2023 Cricket World Cup, and the Indian Premier League, placing third and fourth respectively, beating out the films Oppenheimer and Barbie and even Taylor Swift. If you are wondering which articles took the first two top sports, that would be ChatGPT and Deaths in 2023. 
5. Most watched sports content on Netflix? Formula 1: Drive to Survive: Season 5 with a whopping 90 million hours watched.
6. A new women’s sports attendance record was set in 2023: In a space dominated by women’s football, the Nebraska v Nebraska-Omaha volleyball game set a new women’s sports attendance record with just over 92,003 packed into Memorial Stadium. This record was previously held by the FC Barcelona v Wolfsburg game which saw a then record attendance of 91,648
7. Sam Kerr was the number one searched Australian in 2023
8. Both the England women’s national football team and the netball team made it to the final of a major tournament on foreign soil for the first time in 2023. However despite losing out on the titles for the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 and the Netball World Cup 2023, both teams set new records for England Sport.
9. Team sponsorship revenue for US major pro sports leagues soared 17.5% to more than $6.7B combined.
10. When it comes to Athletes as Influencers, the top two properties are European Football and Major League Soccers with Lionel Messia and Cristiano Ronaldo accounting for more than 25% of all athletebranded social engagement.
11. Speaking of influencers, Prime Hydration , created by influencers Logan Paul and KSI, moved into sports sponsorship with sponsorship or digital media deals with 40 properties, most notably as the Official Sports Drink of UFC, and FC Barcelona’s Official Hydration Partner.
12. Another notable figure Kim Kardashian’s SKIM was named official underwear partner of the NBA, WNBA and USA Basketball.
13. Two Ballon d’Or winners, Alexia Putellas and Aitana Bonmatí, are selling more shirts than most male footballers at FC Barcelona. In fact only three footballers from Barcelona's first men’s team sell more shirts than Putellas and Bonmati.
14. The top 7 athletes with the most NIL deals are female. 
15. Top Female Sports Leagues in the world Ranked by the number of sponsorship deals are WNBA, Women’s Liga MX and  the NWSL

That was our list of 15 global sports business highlights of 2023. I have been host Lorraine Moalosi. Thank you so much for joining us for the end of our epic season 2 of the SPorts CDP Crash Course. See you next week for season 3. Until then, have yourself a happy new year!