As the leading publisher covering the intersection of business, sports and culture, we highly prioritize turning the business of sports into entertainment on Instagram. Our goals for 2023 on such a visual platform included (1) establishing a distinct voice and graphic presence to build strong brand awareness and (2) increasing our posting cadence and surface area, leaning into a collection of posts across Feed, Reels and Stories to engage our audience.
Using social as our primary driver, we’ve cultivated a unique audience that we call the sports prosumer. We’ve done this by carving out a distinct niche focused on compelling storytelling around what’s happening outside the lines of play. This audience is affluent, influential and expects more from their sports coverage. They’re as passionate about their careers as they are about their favorite teams and players.
With a premium aesthetic and recognizable signature formats, our intention is to create content that is not only easy to digest, but easy to reference in daily conversation. Our content influences conversations that happen in the boardroom, in the group chat, at the dinner table, at the watercooler. At our core, we believe the business of sports is meant to be enjoyed by more than just the sports business industry.
In 2023, Front Office Sports published 1,462 total posts on Instagram, a 94% YoY increase from 2022. With our distinct style and voice, we bring unique perspectives and storylines surrounding the impact of business on sports and entertainment to a quickly growing audience. Our content reaches an average audience of 10M+ people per month.
Some of our best performing franchises and storytelling formats on Instagram in 2023 include:
Women’s Sports: Generating more than 200M impressions across our social platforms in 2023, our coverage of women’s sports and celebrating women in sports is a core part of our DNA. Fueled by a record-breaking year across the WNBA, NWSL, Women’s World Cup, NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament, NCAA Volleyball and new emerging leagues, our women’s sports coverage and content captured an engagement rate of 9.3% on Instagram
Athlete-Led Storytelling: Our storytelling of female athletes like Naomi Girma, Caitlin Clark and Coco Gauff garnered record engagement, and a single post about Tiger Woods and LeBron James - the only two active athlete billionaires in sports - captured more than 385k likes alone. We believe the most compelling stories are the ones that are happening outside the lines of play. The stories of athletes joining the front office, athletes investing in teams and leagues, athletes becoming entrepreneurs and starting businesses, athletes using their platforms for good and more. The stories are endless and we’re passionate about sharing them with our audience.
Record Viewership and Attendance: 2023 was a year for the history books in terms of record-breaking viewership and attendance, topics we cover often under our Tuned In franchise. Our audience craves these updates (seriously, people comment on our posts asking when we’ll be sharing the latest ratings) and they’re consistently a high-performing format. Within women’s sports, we captured the exciting milestones of incredible viewership around the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament, the US Open Women’s Final, NCAA Women’s Volleyball, the Women’s World Cup and more. The Women’s World Cup, NWSL, WNBA and PWHL all experienced record attendance, shattering expectations. The NFL had a banner year in viewership, breaking records throughout the season - across streaming and broadcast. Front Office Sports was the leader in covering it all and breaking it down for our audience in a way that makes numbers entertainment.
With a premium approach to news, coverage and storytelling on Instagram, we often capture the attention of the biggest names in sports, entertainment and business. In an effort to engage the sports community and reach new audiences, we execute IG collabs with teams, leagues, properties athletes and personalities in the space - including successful partnerships with Charles Woodson, the NWSL, CJ McCollum, Kirk Hirbstreit, Alex Morgan’s Togethxr, and more.
In 2023, our IG content was engaged with and shared by Billie Jean King, Tom Brady, Ryan Reynolds, Snoop Dogg, Usain Bolt, A-Rod, Sue Bird, Deion Sanders, Stephen A. Smith and more. Our content is often repurposed or re-shared across ESPN, Bleacher Report, Sports Illustrated, Barstool Sports, Uninterrupted and more.
In 2023, Front Office Sports’ content on Instagram generated more than 290M organic impressions, 18.7M engagements and 51M video views. This content averaged a 6.5% engagement rate, with a spike in January with 8.6%. We’re bullish that this growth is fueled by our unique approach to storytelling and capturing the intersection of sports, business and culture with a fresh perspective and distinct voice/style of social content.
This approach has also powered incredible audience growth across the board, with Instagram leading the way as our biggest driver in YoY social growth. Our Instagram audience grew by 213% over the course of 2023 from 74,826 followers to 233,866, and has continued its rapid growth in the first weeks of 2024. We’re already on pace to 2x that growth this year with no signs of slowing down.
