Every year, brands spend massive dollars during Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the holiday season to reach high-intent shoppers. But they often overlook one of the most engaged and valuable consumer groups in the market: sports fans.
Our latest analysis shows sports fans should be top of mind for holiday media planning, and not all fans are created equal. When we ranked holiday spending by league fandom, we uncovered meaningful differences in consumer value that can help brands reduce waste and drive higher return on ad spend.
The growing influence of women’s sports is showing up at the register.
Tracking the purchase behaviour of nearly 28 million US sports fans across 94 major retailers and the past three years, the data shows WNBA supporters spend an average of $558 per person during the peak shopping window from Black Friday through early December. That’s more than NFL, MLS, NHL and MLB fans.
Sports fans aren’t just passionate, they’re powerful shoppers whose interests extend far beyond merchandise. They spend across beauty, electronics, travel, streaming, fitness, wellness and luxury. Fandom is both emotional and transactional, especially during the holidays.
Why This Matters for Holiday Marketers
As brands enter the most competitive retail period of the year, this understanding makes all the difference. It informs smarter media planning, targeting and creative strategy. To reduce wasted ad spend, marketers need to identify audiences that translate engagement into real, verified purchases.
That’s where deterministic fan identity matters.
Turning Fandom Into Measurable Holiday Impact
The data proves it: audiences that drive the most value aren’t always the largest, but instead, they’re the ones with intent. And it’s transaction-level data that proves intent.
Through Genius Sports Audiences, now live in LiveRamp and major DSPs, advertisers can activate this intelligence directly to reach high-intent segments across leagues and categories. The data is deterministic and passively collected, built from more than 250 million verified US adults and 10,000 merchants.
Advertisers can activate league-specific targeting, like NHL fans who shop Black Friday, or broader categories, such as men’s sports fans who overindex for electronics. Campaigns can also be tailored around emerging fan clusters. Including Gen Z trendsetters, fans of women’s sports or gaming audiences—all grounded in real purchase behaviour.
Combined with multi-year purchase histories, we also help brands see how fan spending evolves, turning short-term campaigns into long-term performance strategies that keep the holiday momentum going.
The Takeaway
Sports fans spend, and brands should be spending to reach them. With deterministic data, marketers can unlock the highest-value fans this holiday season, optimize media investment, and convert passion into purchase at scale.
The bottom line? Sports fans are proving they’re worth it, and the brands who recognize their value first will win the holiday season.
