The Sports World Is Getting The Retail Media Bug

Recorded: March 27, 2026, 6 a.m.

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Home Marketers The Sports World Is Getting The Retail Media Bug

Commerce
The Sports World Is Getting The Retail Media Bug By James Hercher

Friday, March 27th, 2026 – 1:44 am
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The retail media revolution of data-driven, digital marketing monetization is coming to the sports industry.
On the innocuous end of the sports marketing spectrum, this week, Pacers Sports & Entertainment (PS&E) debuted what it calls the Fieldhouse Media Network in partnership with Deloitte and Yieldmo. PS&E owns the Indiana pro basketball teams – the NBA’s Indiana Pacers and WNBA’s Indiana Fever – as well as the arena, which hosts concerts and other events.
The partnership aims to extend sponsorship marketing from the stadium and other local promotions to ads around the web. The plan is to target stories, videos or online searches with keywords with player names (Caitlin Clark and Tyrese Haliburton are the best-known stars of the Pacers and Fever) or timely basketballs terms (like “trade deadline”).
Don’t expect the idea to stay in Indianapolis.
In the 24 hours since announcing the Fieldhouse Media Network, “the amount of inbound calls we’ve received from our partner [NBA] teams and from other leagues has been sort of overwhelming,” said Joey Graziano, PS&E’s chief commercial officer. “We’d be very excited for other teams and leagues to launch their own RMNs” along the same lines, he said.
But everything is an ad network nowadays. That’s hardly a sin.

Parents are paying the price
For parents, keener data and marketing prowess means an increase in the costs of youth sports.
The booming youth sports industry has “only one big winner,” jests the headline of a WSJ profile of Dick’s Sporting Goods earlier this month.
That’s largely because Dick’s is the biggest seller of baseball equipment, and baseball occupies the upward-trajectory line in our new K-shaped economy.
The Aspen Institute-backed State of Play report, last updated in December for the full-year 2025, rates baseball and softball as having the biggest drop-off in overall five-year participation rates in the US among the major sports. That drop-off in participation includes tackle football losing players to flag football, since many parents are apparently slow-rolling or diverting their kids’ entrance to contact football over safety concerns.
Despite the steep drop in participation, the baseball business is booming. Different leagues, ages and tournaments require different bats, not to mention practice bats. And by the way, it turns out one can steal thousands of dollars’ worth of baseball bats, and it’s, like, a few bats. They’re carbon fiber but worth their weight in gold.
Fewer kids are playing baseball, but the average cost in equipment and gear per youth player has gone up 70% in five years.
My life is in danger if I disparage Dick’s Sporting Goods too much; it’s reached that level of fandom. But the retailer has executed an aggressive data-driven overhaul. A decade ago, Dick’s acquired the GameChanger app, which has since evolved from a high school scorekeeping app to a full-on media and data business, with built-in messaging and chats, a subscription package, livestreaming of games and more. Oh, and a free ad-supported tier.
In 2022, Dick’s introduced its own RMN, Dick’s Media Network.
The combination of Dick’s Media Network and the GameChanger app with livestream games is “unique in the marketplace,” President and CEO Lauren Hobart told investors during Dick’s earnings report last week. “It’s appealing to our brand partners as well as to our non-endemic partners who want to be a part of youth sports,” she said.
The media network and GameChanger business are “the underlining drivers” of the Dick’s confidence it can further improve gross profit margins, added CFO Navdeep Gupta.
All fun and games
Who cares about a Pacers’ sponsor targeting fans in distant cities? Or whether parents overpay for baseball gear; or pay to stream their kids’ junior varsity games.
Fair enough.
But sports and data-driven advertising have some truly insidious intersections. Often, nowadays, that comes at the intersection of gambling, too.
Fanatics has a new content marketing program, “Cookin’ Up Parlays,” which features the rapper and chef Action Bronson cooking and talking bets with pro athletes (like Kendrick Perkins and Gary Payton) or rapper guests (Lil Yachty and Paul Wall).
The guests share their own parlay forecasts that viewers can bet on in the Fanatics Sportsbook app, which launched in 2023.
Fanatics is best known as the merchandise and ecommerce partner for all the major US sports. The NHL, NBA, MLB and NFL are each Fanatics shareholders. But it’s increasingly a mobile betting and markets company.
Last May, Fanatics added the Fanatics Casino app. And just in December it created the Fanatics Markets app, which is a prediction markets betting platform akin to Kalshi or Polymarket (but focused on sports).
The Action Bronson show is light and fun entertainment.
Although a parlay is a sucker’s bet. In gambling parlance, a parlay is when a string of bets is placed together and only pays off if all the bets are correct. Parlays are heavily marketed by sportsbook apps because they are a sign of an unsophisticated player with greater lifetime value.
A Substack article last month from Bharat Ramamurti, former deputy director of the National Economic Council, made the point that sportsbook and betting apps employ dynamic offers (like bids taking advantage of a recent gambling loss or a favorite team), VIP loyalty programs and personalized messages. State lotteries do not use such tactics, but they result in far less addiction and severe financial harm.
It’s possible that Action Bronson viewers could follow the parlay links from the new Fanatics show and end up being big winners. But it’s not likely.
“Hopefully [viewers] know we can’t control the outcome,” Fanatics SVP of brand marketing Michael Fitzsimmons told me. “We’re not concerned by it. I think it’s part of the fun.”
Back to NIL
Aside from betting, the other in-road for marketers into sports comes through college and high school “Name, Image, Likeness” (NIL) deals. These types of NCAA sponsorship and marketing payments were legalized by the Supreme Court in 2021.
The problem brought before the court was that NCAA athletes went unrewarded for their hard work and personal brands, despite earning billions for the NCAA and their universities. But the sudden switch to NIL deals has created an unregulated Wild West of marketing payments going toward teenagers.
There is now an entire category of middle and high schools, for instance, that exist – and advertise themselves aggressively – as pipelines to D1 NCAA athletics and NIL deals. Holding a child back a year to gain experience and perhaps a growth spurt, and to put themselves ahead in consideration for NIL deals, is now commonplace.
Parents frame the decision as a “gamble” or “investment.” The payout is a marketing deal.
In 2023, the University of Texas created a fund, called the Texas One Fund, which UT fans can pay an annual fee to be members of. The fund exists to raise money and repackage that money as marketing NIL deals for in-state athletes. The whole idea is to keep teenage star athletes in Texas, when other universities are offering thousands – sometimes hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars – in guaranteed marketing payments themselves.
These eye-popping offers are happening outside Texas, too. The University of Miami reportedly offered a $6.5 million one-year contract to University of Alabama quarterback Ty Simpson – not to peel him away from Alabama, mind, but as an alternative to his declared plan to join the NFL Draft.
What?!
That’s for a proven star who’s almost guaranteed to be an early NFL draft pick.
Kids who are held back a year to gain a potential NCAA and NIL edge are generally 13 years old. The decision must come before high school, since there are four years of eligibility.
One private school counselor who specializes in the practice – known as “reclassing” to avoid the stigma attached to “being held back” – joked about parents who are 5’5” and 5’6” pushing for an extra year so their kid can get to 6’3”.
But, for real, many if not most kids who “reclass” are not bound for D1 sports.
However, Parents and teens taking a chance on far more realistic NIL marketing deals is what underpins this entire cottage industry.
Data-driven advertising is coming for sports from all angles. And it’s only going to increase, whether that means Dick’s Sporting Goods defying retail industry trends, people being sucked into sports gambling and prediction apps, parents being persuaded to hold their kid back a year or brands sending ad dollars to student-athletes.
You can bet on it.

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The sports industry is experiencing a significant shift as retail media monetization, previously dominant in the broader retail sector, gains traction. This transformation is spearheaded by initiatives like the Pacers Sports & Entertainment’s (PS&E) Fieldhouse Media Network, a partnership with Deloitte and Yieldmo, demonstrating a broader trend across the sports landscape. The network aims to extend sponsorship marketing beyond traditional stadium advertising, targeting online conversations and searches related to key athletes like Caitlin Clark and Tyrese Haliburton. This approach highlights a data-driven approach to marketing, utilizing consumer interest to deliver tailored advertising experiences.

However, this shift isn’t simply about targeting fans; it’s having tangible consequences for consumers. The rise of data-driven marketing is increasing costs for youth sports participation, as evidenced by the WSJ profile of Dick’s Sporting Goods. A significant factor is the boom in baseball and softball, fueled by shifting consumer preferences and concerns about contact sports, leading to increased equipment costs – a phenomenon exacerbated by the rise of theft and the value of specialized equipment like carbon fiber bats. Dick’s Sporting Goods’ strategic response, including its acquisition of the GameChanger app and the launch of its own retail media network, showcases this trend.

The GameChanger app’s evolution, from a scorekeeping tool to a media and data business, demonstrates the potential of combining live sports data with targeted advertising. Dick’s Sporting Goods’ success hinges on this integrated approach, attracting brand and non-endemic partners seeking to reach the youth sports market. Furthermore, the company’s CFO emphasizes the core role of the media network and GameChanger in driving gross profit margins and bolstering investor confidence.

Beyond traditional sponsorships, the sports world is seeing the emergence of more disruptive strategies. Fanatics’ “Cookin’ Up Parlays” program, featuring celebrity chefs and athletes forecasting game outcomes for betting, exemplifies this intersection between sports, data, and gambling. This integration highlights a potential risk for advertisers, as it can inadvertently encourage risky betting behavior.

Another significant development is the rise of Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) deals among college athletes. Legalized in 2021, NIL deals have created an unprecedented market for athlete endorsement marketing, often leading to strategic maneuvering by universities to retain star players. The University of Texas’s Texas One Fund, a scheme to repackage athlete marketing payments, is a prime example of this trend. The pursuit of a competitive advantage through extended eligibility and lucrative NIL contracts has fundamentally altered the ecosystem, influencing decisions about college athletic programs and potentially delaying athletes’ transition to professional sports.

Data-driven advertising is impacting all levels of sports, from professional leagues to high school athletics. It’s important to understand that this trend isn’t simply growing; it’s accelerating. The interplay between retail media, gambling, athlete marketing, and the evolving landscape of college athletics paints a complex and potentially lucrative picture for marketers – one that requires a keen understanding of consumer behavior and constantly shifting dynamics.