Research Shows Gen Z Fans Not Deserting Football, Despite Esl Claims

New research published on the back of plans by 12 European clubs to set up a breakaway Super League has shown that younger, Gen Z, fans were not enthused by the prospect of such a seismic change in football.

In comments on Spanish TV, Real Madrid President Florentino Perez – who was also named as the first President of the European Super League – said that football needed to ensure it stayed relevant for younger fans, positioning the league as one way of doing that.

Research from creative agency Ear to the Ground shows that 80% of Gen Z fans around the world were against the creation of the European Super League, a number which rose to 90% in Western Europe, North America, and South America –  who felt the tournament was ‘out of step’ with what they wanted from the game.

Meanwhile, there was a higher positive figure in other parts of the world, with just 72% of Gen Z fans in Nigeria, China, Japan & Indonesia stating they were against the European Super League.

The agency’s Fan Intelligence model was used to collect the data amongst an 11,000-strong group of 18-28 year-old football fans on six continents, who Ear To The Ground says does want to see more games take place between the biggest clubs, but ‘not at the expense of what they value about football’. The agency also says that Gen Z ‘wants to be on the right side of societal issues’, while the European Super League, they say, went against.

“We’ve all watched the rise and demise of the proposed competition over the space of the last few days. What’s interesting from speaking to the network is that it isn’t just local fans (“legacy fans” as they were dismissed as) who reacted negatively to this model, but young fans in far flung international markets as well – the ones it seems they thought they would scoop up with a ‘bombastic’ tournament.” Said Owen Laverty, Director of Fan Intelligence, Ear to the Ground.

“It’s about knowing what your audiences care about, and the role you play for them. We know there are smart people working across all of these clubs, but it feels like these decisions about a breakaway league were made in boardrooms by individuals who were disconnected from the real world and potentially misunderstood the values of the people that this mattered to the most, the fans who they needed to follow it.

“What’s clear from speaking to the fans directly, is there is a need for (positive) evolution in the game. This isn’t a sign that fans want things to stay the same, it’s that they want them to get better. It feels like the worst thing that could come from this for fans, is the game doesn’t improve and innovate, but in a positive way.”

The data chimes with recent research from YouGov Sport, which shows that football is not significantly less-followed among younger audiences than the general public, and is still comfortably the most popular sport amongst younger audiences in what would have been the Super League’s core markets.

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