Congratulations to the Indiana Hoosiers for accomplishing an unthinkable turnaround to win a college football national championship. It’s a timely reminder that anything is possible in sports—even in the midst of NIL-induced upheaval. Meanwhile, the Patriots and Seahawks are set to battle for Super Bowl LX. It’ll be a rematch of the infamous Super Bowl XLIX, where Seattle’s decision to pass on the one-yard line turned out to be a Malcolm Butler-sized mistake and gave Tom Brady his fourth Super Bowl. Kudos to Patriots fans who have endured an entire eight years without making the big game. Must be nice…

Envy aside, Pats-Seahawks will be one of the jewels in NBC’s “Legendary February.” The company has the rights for the Milan Cortina Olympics, Super Bowl and 2026 NBA All-Star Weekend. While it’s a star-studded lineup of events, it’ll showcase the breadth of NBC’s ability to broadcast these events across linear and digital platforms, in addition to using some of the technological aspects it’s been working on as February draws near.

For example, figure skating events will have a “Coaching Cam” option as well as a “Training Room” view as athletes prepare for events. Hockey games will have a “Bench Cam” to stay in tune with what’s transpiring on the ice. Additionally, Rinkside Live will come with a highlights tab that offers vertical videos of key moments.

The Courtside Live feature will debut for the NBA’s U.S. vs World All-Star contest on February 15 at 5p. It’ll be used for select NBA games throughout the rest of the season, but fans using mobile devices will have access to multiple, curated feeds of alternate angles, such as “Star Spotlight” or specific views of the home or away team.

Another feature NBCUniversal is rolling out once again is OLI, an AI-powered discoverability tool to help fans navigate Olympics coverage. OLI first debuted for the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics, combining generative AI with proprietary, real-time programming information to display when, where and how fans can tune into various events. OLI will be available on the 19 NBCU-owned digital properties, with the latest updates including live medal counts by country, athlete profiles with bios and event details, video highlights, calendar invites and suggested follow-up queries to discover new sports and other content.

NBCU is tapping into technological enhancements to make the Olympics more accessible. The company is making closed captioning available for all events airing across its properties, in addition to the whip-around “Gold Zone” show that’ll stream on Peacock. Audio description will be available on the second audio program for viewers who are blind or have low vision. All coverage on NBC—including replays—and Gold Zone will offer audio description. What’s more is it’ll be provided in stereo to further enhance the sound quality.

On the advertising front, NBCU sold out of its Olympics inventory one month before the Opening Ceremony (February 6). More than 100 new advertisers bought in on the action, helping NBCU score its highest linear and digital revenue in Winter Olympics history. Over 85% of brands made digital investments, while advertiser adoption of Peacock’s tools grew 31% compared to the Paris Games. Nearly 60 advertisers purchased unique marketing elements, and more than a dozen bought sponsorships to offer more live sports viewing to fans.

The partnership builds on a similar collaboration between TikTok and FIFA for the 2023 Women’s World Cup. This go-around will be helmed by an immersive World Cup 2026 hub powered by TikTok’s GamePlan, which will enable users to discover content related to the tournament. Plus, fans can see match ticket and viewing information, as well as other enhancements such as custom stickers, filters and gamification features.

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Sports Illustrated launched a free ad-supported TV (FAST) channel this month, SI TV, which is now available to watch on TV distributors including DirecTV, Plex and Amazon’s Fire TV, with more distributors such as Roku to join that list soon.

Cynopsis caught up with Steve Cannella, the publication’s editor-in-chief, about why this move makes sense for the historic sports brand—and what is next on its roadmap.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

What spurred the company’s decision to launch a FAST channel this year?
Audiences are flocking to the FAST space, so this is an opportunity to expand our core, sports-focused content into premium video environments to build our audiences. We don’t have linear channels we can simply readapt for a streaming environment, so for us, SI TV is an opportunity to produce longer-form videos that can tell more in-depth stories compared to what’s possible on social media, YouTube or our owned-and-operated channels.

With audiences consuming content across an array of digital platforms, we ultimately want the Sports Illustrated brand to be visible in as many digital touchpoints as possible.

The FAST space is very saturated. How does Sports Illustrated expect SI TV to stand out?
Our core differentiator is the scope of our content and the sports talent in our network who help establish the brand as an authoritative source on sports history and happenings.

Sports Illustrated content spans news-based analysis and documentary-style storytelling in addition to classic sports programming. For example, we launched a weekly show over the summer with extensive coverage of the WNBA season [now available on SI TV, “Around the W” first ran on YouTube and SI’s website], and we can now expand that content across our FAST distributors as well. We have similar ideas for some of the content we have in our archives, dating back to the 70s.

But we don’t plan to rely only on already-existing content. The perception of FAST channels has been shifting across the industry, especially over the past year. Now, FAST is considered not only as a place for evergreen content, but as a place where live programming can thrive by drawing in new viewers and brand partners. Distributors nowadays take care to ask prospective content partners about the breadth of their live programming slates.

How does the outlet’s expansion into FAST translate into how Sports Illustrated plans to engage brand partners?
Perhaps most exciting for us in terms of advertiser partnerships is the opportunity to integrate branding within the programming we’ll be producing. We will also have more opportunities to offer brands more diversified sales opportunities. If a brand wants to pair a title sponsorship or brand integration with pre-roll video ads on our owned-and-operated channels, for example, we can make that happen – and it would likely help brands expand their audience reach to include FAST viewers.

As for newer or less endemic brand clients, we believe the audience variety and scale across FAST environments will help us attract more advertiser interest. FAST tends to be a stickier environment that can retain viewership.

Can you elaborate on how Sports Illustrated expects its FAST channel to expand audience reach for itself and its advertiser clients?
For us, FAST viewers can range from intentional sports fans to casual viewers who are flipping through programming and happen to land on our channel. For example, we expect some of our FAST viewers to be consumers who may have been tuning into a news channel just seconds prior. We also expect the reputation backing the Sports Illustrated brand to help attract or retain viewers who recognize our name. If I were a brand, I’d be interested in the audience diversification that opportunity represents.

What’s next for Sports Illustrated as it develops its SI TV offering?
In the short term, our focus is expanding our reach across FAST distributors to widen our audience reach and scale.

Longer term, we’ll focus more on premium video production. While our current offering is strong and exciting, we have to continue evolving and adapting to marketplace needs—like any good media property.

Earned media firm Gray Wolf and digital measurement platform Zoomph released its “Amplified 25 report,” highlighting a data-driven ranking of sports sponsors that garner the most fan attention from the past year. The report utilized 8 billion data points from more than 600 sponsorship investments across professional sports, with a focus on brands that earned attention through discussions on social media and exposure first, and earned media impact afterward.

We chatted with Gray Wolf Co-Founder Shaun Clair about what success looks like nowadays for sports sponsorships, as well as what will bring ROI in an evolving media landscape. View the report here.

What does the report reveal about how sponsorship success is being redefined in today’s sports media ecosystem?
Being savvy now outweighs spend. We call it “amplified” because sponsors need their rights to work harder than ever. Prices to acquire sponsorships are rising sharply, and larger budgets no longer guarantee enough fan exposure.

The Amplified 25 shows that the landscape is changing: brands must truly show up, and the audience now decides which brands are worth talking about.

It doesn’t matter how much a brand spends, it matters what they do and how they do it.

Did any brands surprise you by overperforming?
Blue-chip marketers like FanDuel, Google, and State Farm led the “Amplified 25,” followed by Michelob Ultra, Kia, Gatorade, Chase, Toyota, and AT&T. (Editor note: Toyota is a Gray Wolf client.)

The bigger surprise was how brands—large and small—overperformed by making full use of their sponsorships. Jersey patches were among the most efficient placements, simply because they stood out in social clips. But the brands that truly stood out treated sponsorship not just as media, but as intellectual property to build ongoing fan-first programs around.

FanDuel, the No. 1 brand, exemplified this with its “Kick of Destiny” campaign featuring the Manning brothers. The months-long storyline built toward a single kicking moment during the Super Bowl, rather than a one-off activation.

How should leagues/teams interpret “stickiness” as fan behavior continues to become more fragmented? Is that interpretation the same for the brands themselves?
“Stickiness” is memorable impact, not just exposure. The stickiest sponsors create stories, experiences, and content that resonate culturally. In our report, we measured this through organic social and earned media—conversations fans share themselves, which you cannot buy.

We analyzed 600 brand sponsors to identify the Amplified 25, highlighting just how intense the battle for fan attention has become. A fan can face as many as 3,000 branded touchpoints in a single trip to an arena, according to a Sqwad report. With that much noise, it’s impossible to remember everything. Stickiness isn’t about quantity—it’s about cutting through the clutter in a way that’s memorable, shareable, and meaningful.

The takeaway for brands is clear: a logo in front of fans isn’t enough—and hasn’t been for a while. Storytelling around your sponsorship is essential, or you risk falling further behind on the stickiness scoreboard.

Social media accounts for 75% of the weighted score. What does that say about where sponsorship ROI is truly being generated today?
Sponsors follow fan behavior, and fans are on social media. That’s why 75% of our formula weighted that impact while earned media (25%) adds credibility, feeds AI recommendations, and keeps content pumped into social feeds in ways that paid media cannot.

Are we seeing a shift away from passive exposure toward assets designed specifically for social sharing?
Absolutely. That social-first shift has happened already. The brands that took notice of that years ago are the ones that landed in top rankings of “The Amplified 25.”

How do you expect stickiness to evolve as leagues push further into direct-to-consumer, streaming and creator-driven content?
Across all mediums, the path forward is clear: treat sponsorships as creative IP to build campaigns around. One of the top performers Zoomph and Gray Wolf measured—Michelob Ultra’s NBA Courtside Experiences—was built on a single insight: give everyday fans a taste of an exclusive courtside moment.

Breakthrough ideas like this aren’t more common because sponsorship marketing isn’t easy. It can be limiting, complex, and even deflating for newcomers. The winners know the rights, embrace the partnership aspect, and align with the right agencies to create buzz that sticks.

Those who do will see big lifts in their business, because cultural relevance is king—and sports remains one of the most powerful ways to achieve it.

“Women’s golf is poised for meaningful acceleration. More women and girls than ever before are taking up the sport. Professional women golfers have the star power to attract new, younger and more socially engaged audiences and top-tier sponsorships,” said Roberts, Founder/CEO of GingerBread Capital. “It’s important that women are at the forefront of this investment opportunity, which aligns with our mission of investing in women funders and founders.”

In England, Premier League side Burnley FC tapped CAMB.AI, Mantis XR and Piing to take part in its inaugural “Innovation Hub” cohort. The companies will work with Burnley’s operations over a six-month period to deploy and test their products as the club looks to enhance supporter engagement with new digital experiences.

2008: Twenty-year-old Novak Djokovic became the first Serbian player to win a Grand Slam title in tennis, defeating Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, 7-6 (7-2) in the Australian Open final. At the time, it ended a streak of 11 consecutive Grand Slams won by either Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal. Djokovic, now 38, has won 24 Grand Slam championships throughout his career, with the most recent coming in 2023 at the U.S. Open.

2013: Sticking with the Djokovic theme, he set an Open era record after winning his third consecutive Australian Open. He’d accomplish a three-peat once again in 2019-21. Djokovic was slated to play in the 2022 edition but had his visa revoked due to his COVID-19 vaccination status. He returned in 2023, where he won his 10th Australian Open title—the most of all time.