The sports fan conversation, measured weekly

Welcome back. Sports & Co. has a new research tool. Every week, the Fan Sentiment Index reads a fixed panel of fan conversation across Reddit, X, YouTube, and Bluesky and scores how fans are leaning on ticket pricing, streaming, sponsorship, and the rest of the business. This week’s lead covers what the index is, how the readings work, and why fan conversation moves before the renewal data does.

Last week, fans went out of their way on social media to hand out credit on two soccer-related topics. They praised Apple TV for how easy MLS has become to find, and adidas for kit designs they buy on loyalty alone. A new Sports & Co. research tool read those posts, classified them as praise, and scored them, along with every other item in its panel of fan conversations.

The tool is our Fan Sentiment Index, a weekly measure of how fans talk about the business of sports. We published the first edition this morning on our website, free to read, and a new one will go live every Tuesday. Where our Fan Index survey asked sports fans directly what they spend and why, the Sentiment Index reads what fans say in public, unprompted, across ticket pricing, streaming and broadcast, sponsorship, merchandise, gambling, and stadium news.

The industry once got a rough version of this read from the beat reporters and local columnists who relayed what fans were saying about a price increase or a broadcast move. Local sports desks have shrunk since, a decline this newsletter covered last week, and the decisions kept getting bigger anyway. Seat licenses, direct-to-consumer pricing, and whole new sponsorship categories now move faster than the annual surveys and quarterly cycles that still supply most of the industry’s fan research.

Today’s replacements are sometimes hard to justify cost-wise. Conversation tracking at scale is sold to enterprise marketing departments, and most syndicated fan studies arrive once a year with general-market framing. No weekly, public read specific to the business of sports existed for free, so Sports & Co. built one.

We’re investing in this for three reasons. It’s early. Fans complain, praise, and threaten to cancel out loud before any of that shows up in renewal rates or churn reports, so the conversation flags a shift weeks before the business numbers do. It’s comparable. Because the panel of sources stays the same every week, the readings line up week to week, a real trend line instead of a pile of anecdotes. And it’s specific. The scores come with names, which operators fans are rewarding and which topics are warming.

Each week the index reads the same set of sources on Reddit, X, YouTube, and Bluesky, the way a ratings service holds its panel of households constant. When a number moves, the conversation moved, not the sample. Every item gets classified by topic, by the leagues and companies named, and by whether the fan leaned toward value or friction, with each week’s classifications audited by us against an 85% agreement standard before going live.

What the tool reports

Each edition runs the same set of readings, so weeks compare cleanly. The headline number is net sentiment, the share of positive minus negative conversation on a scale from -100 to +100, shown beside a smoothed four-week trend. Topic shares show where the conversation went, and sentiment scores show how fans leaned on each topic, with zero as neutral. A short list names the five companies and leagues fans argued about most, a league scoreboard breaks the week out by fanbase, and four behavior signals track the share of fans threatening to cancel a paid service, tallying the costs of following a team, naming a cheaper alternative, or planning a purchase.

A momentum reading runs from 0 to 100 with 50 as neutral, measuring the share of tracked topics and names warming versus cooling week over week. Each edition closes with a short watch list of storylines the coming weeks will test.

The behavior signals catch fans moving from feeling to intent, since a fan naming the cheaper alternative is further down the road than a fan complaining. And the sentiment scores put a number on a feeling. In the first published edition, college revenue sharing finished as the only topic on the positive side, at +5.

The index also has a long memory, because fans do. A conversation tracker picks up whatever fans keep talking about — the test waves we ran before launch showed fans still crediting access decisions made months or years earlier. In one July test week, fans praised the Portland Trail Blazers for the 5,000 digital antennas the team gave away in October 2024, when its games returned to free over-the-air television, and recirculated the Seattle Mariners’ $19.99 no-blackout stream (first launched in March 2025 and carried into this season as the team-run Mariners TV).

Why the numbers lean negative

Most weeks, most sentiment scores will run below zero for two structural reasons. First, fans post about the business most often when it costs them something, like a blackout, a markup, or a renewal notice. Satisfaction with a fair price usually ends up with a purchase, not a post. Second, negative material travels farther online. Researchers at Cambridge Judge Business School, analyzing 95,282 news articles and more than 579 million Facebook and X posts in a study published in Scientific Reports in 2024, found users were 1.91 times more likely to share negative articles than positive ones.

So the index reports movement and composition rather than a single mood verdict. A topic score improving from -46 to -30 is what to watch, not the minus sign.

The index is independent research. It isn’t affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any league, team, broadcaster, sportsbook, or brand it names.

What Edition 1 caught

The debut covered the week of July 14th and found fans reading their checkout screen line by line. Ticket pricing and streaming split the conversation almost evenly, at 30 and 29 percent. Fans itemized the fees added to face value, with the anger aimed at the add-ons rather than the ticket price itself. Net sentiment came in at -37, with momentum steady at 50.

Fans saved their praise for pricing restraint. They passed around Ariana Grande’s decision to keep dynamic pricing off the Eternal Sunshine tour now playing arenas. They credited Ticketmaster Canada, too, for delisting above-face resale in Ontario under the province’s new price cap. The index scored both among the week’s warmest spots.

Fans will keep talking in public. Sports & Co. will publish what they say, and what moved, every Tuesday morning.

Kieran Donahue → EVP and Chief Marketing Officer, Pacers Sports & Entertainment
Donahue will lead marketing across all of PS&E’s properties, including the Pacers and Fever, reporting to president and CEO Mel Raines. She spent more than three decades in hospitality and consumer brands, most recently as EVP and chief commercial officer of GoTo Foods, the parent of Cinnabon, Auntie Anne’s, and Jamba, with a nearly four-year run as CMO of IHOP and marketing leadership roles at Marriott and Hilton before that. She arrives as PS&E builds out the Fieldhouse District around its arena and stands up Fieldhouse Media Network, the media platform it launched this year.

Janeen Lalik → Deputy Athletics Director / Senior Woman Administrator, Wake Forest
Lalik returns to college athletics from the Nashville Predators’ Sabertooth Sports & Entertainment, where as executive vice president she oversaw F&M Bank Arena, three Ford Ice Centers, and Centennial Sportsplex. Her 30-plus years in the business include a deputy AD run at Florida State, 18 years at IMG College/ISP Sports, and nearly two years as Ticketmaster’s SVP for college athletics. AD John Currie, who first hired her at Tennessee in 2017, brings her back to campus, where she’ll also work on the partnerships behind The Grounds, the Winston-Salem entertainment district whose $250 million first phase opens in 2027.

Claire Betz-Haukap → Chief of Staff, Arkansas Athletics
Betz-Haukap will run the athletic director’s office for Hunter Yurachek and serve as sport administrator for gymnastics. She arrives from UCF, where she had been chief of staff since June 2021, handling the daily operations of the AD’s office and governance work with the UCF Athletics Association board while helping oversee facility projects including the $90 million Roth Tower. An Arkansas State graduate, she began her career in Jonesboro and rose to assistant athletics director for administration before leaving for Orlando.

Tim Frick → Chief Financial Officer, College Football Playoff
Frick moves up after a decade as the CFP’s director of finance and business operations, the role he’s held since joining in 2016, covering finance, accounting, HR, risk management, contracts, and merchandising. A CPA, he began his career as the Big 12’s business and ticket manager, then spent two years at Grant Thornton and four at Baker Hughes before the CFP. He replaces Dave Marmion, who left this spring to become president and CEO of the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic.

David Bassity → Senior Vice President, Communications, Big Ten Conference
Bassity took charge of the conference’s communications strategy and media relations, effective Monday. He spent the past seven seasons as the Atlanta Falcons’ vice president for football communications, where he was the club’s primary communications strategist and spokesperson. Before the NFL, he was Houston’s senior associate AD for strategic communications and digital media and spent five years in athletics communications at Oklahoma, his alma mater.

Erica McKenzie → Vice President of Ticket Sales and Service, Minnesota Wild
McKenzie steps up from senior director of ticket sales and service, the role she’d held since 2022, capping a 16-year climb that began as a community relations intern in 2010. She moved into ticketing full time, made manager of service and retention in 2015, and then director. Her teams have averaged 95% membership retention during her run as senior director, and the Wild’s group sales ranked among the NHL’s top five in revenue in 2024-25. A Hastings, Minn. native, she played four seasons for the Gophers’ women’s hockey team.

Andrea G. Riley → Director of Athletics, Paine College
Riley comes home to lead athletics at the Augusta HBCU where she played for the Lady Lions basketball team in 1994-95. She brings more than two decades in athletic leadership, including nearly 10 years as coach and administrator of the track and field program at Augusta’s Evans High School, a volunteer sprint coaching stint at the University of South Carolina Beaufort, and USATF Level I-III and IAAF Level 5 certifications, among the sport’s highest coaching credentials. She took over July 1, charged with running all of Lion Athletics.

We surveyed nearly 1,700 Americans for our most recent Sports Fan Index and found that the spending gap between dedicated and occasional fans is 41 points. Our analysis: deepening the relationship with fans already on board is as big a growth opportunity as acquiring new ones. You can read the complete poll summary and takeaways on our website.

Senior Manager, Partner Activation — Los Angeles Lakers (El Segundo, CA): Manages several of the Lakers’ most complex partnership accounts, including the jersey patch and facility naming rights, within the Global Partnerships department. The role owns the full life cycle of those deals, coordinating fulfillment across media, signage, digital, social, and in-arena promotions, and leads the renewal process and revenue growth on its book of business. Learn more and apply here.

Director, Business Strategy & Analytics — Tampa Bay Rays (St. Petersburg, FL): Directs a team of analysts covering data analysis, visualization, modeling, research, and CRM across the Rays’ business operation. The work spans predictive models for lead scoring, retention, and revenue forecasting, ticket pricing and manifest strategy, and performance analysis of Rays.TV, with the director serving as a data partner to finance, ticketing, marketing, and corporate partnerships. Learn more and apply here.

Associate AD, Revenue Generation & Membership Development — Boise State (Boise, ID): Oversees ticket sales and operations, data and analytics, annual fund strategy and Bronco Athletic Association membership development, premium seating and parking, and special events, with a seat on the department’s senior leadership team. The role leads execution of the revenue generation pillar of the school’s What’s Next 2.0 strategic plan and builds multi-year revenue strategies centered on football and men’s basketball. Learn more and apply here.

Manager, Media Sales — Milwaukee Brewers (Milwaukee, WI): Drives advertising revenue across the club’s broadcast and streaming programming, selling in-game commercial spots, pre- and post-game coverage, and digital extensions to regional and local advertisers, agencies, and brand partners. The role also coordinates scheduling, trafficking, and fulfillment of partnership media inventory across television and streaming platforms. Learn more and apply here.

Assistant Athletics Director for Marketing & Fan Experience — University of South Carolina (Columbia, SC): Serves as the primary marketing contact for baseball and the secondary marketing lead for football, while directing the department's mascot program and sitting on committees tied to revenue generation and brand development. The position helps create and launch new revenue-generating events and fan engagement opportunities across Gamecock Athletics. Learn more and apply here.

Desert Cactus × DePaul Athletics: The Chicagoland-based licensed merchandise company becomes the official jersey patch sponsor of DePaul men’s basketball in a multiyear deal, with its logo debuting on Blue Demon uniforms in 2026-27 as the first jersey patch sponsorship in the BIG EAST. Beyond the patch, Desert Cactus will use DePaul’s campus bookstores and Wintrust Arena as a testing ground for new licensed products before scaling them nationally.

Dialpad × Cal Athletics: The AI customer experience platform was selected as the inaugural jersey patch sponsor across all 30 of Cal’s varsity programs and named the Official AI Platform for Fan Experience of Cal Athletics, in what the school calls the largest corporate partnership in Golden Bears history. The multi-year partnership, facilitated by Learfield’s Cal Bears Sports Properties, makes Cal the first athletic department in the ACC to announce a jersey patch sponsor for any sport.

ESPN × SWAC: The network reached a new multi-year media rights agreement keeping SWAC football and basketball on its platforms through 2030-31, covering 10 regular season football games annually, the conference football championship on ABC, ESPN or ESPN2, and both basketball tournament title games on linear ESPN networks. A separate agreement with ESPN Events extends the conference's participation in the Cricket MEAC/SWAC Challenge Kickoff and Cricket Celebration Bowl through 2032.

Vanda Pharmaceuticals × Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing: The biopharmaceutical company will serve as primary sponsor of Mick Schumacher’s No. 47 Honda at four NTT INDYCAR SERIES events in 2026 (Nashville, Portland, Washington, D.C. and Monterey), with NEREUS, its newly approved motion sickness treatment, featured on the car. It marks Vanda’s first involvement in motorsports, adding to a sports portfolio that spans the ATP, NHL, NBA, WNBA and college basketball.

Kalshi × Pro Padel League: The prediction market platform became the PPL’s Official Prediction Market Partner in a multiyear agreement that lets fans trade on the outcomes of league matches, with fan and VIP activations including exclusive pro clinics and co-branded giveaways. The deal grows out of a single-event tie-up at last October’s City's Cup Final in New York, where Kalshi served as the official fan engagement partner.

Tudor × UTMB World Series: The Swiss watchmaker joined the global trail running circuit as Technical Partner in a three-year agreement, with a presence at every UTMB World Series event worldwide; the collaboration debuted at Trail Verbier St-Bernard on July 10. It extends Tudor’s push into the sport after signing four elite trail runners as brand partners earlier this year, headlined by Courtney Dauwalter.

FloSports × USA South Athletic Conference: The streaming company entered a five-year exclusive media rights partnership bringing USA South athletics to its FloCollege platform beginning in 2026-27, with the conference joining the Old Dominion Athletic Conference and the Southern Athletic Association among Southeastern Division III leagues on the service. Select live events will stream free across Amazon Prime Video, YouTube and FloCollege social channels, and members gain access to the FloSports Production Suite for broadcast graphics and stream reliability.

See you next Wednesday.