Welcome To The Digital Fan Engagement Index™ US Edition, 2026
The Digital Fan Engagement Index™ US Edition 2026, provides a industry-wide benchmark of how American sports organizations, leagues, teams and athletes perform digitally across the internet and surface in modern search engines such as Google and ChatGPT.
The report is a collection of maps and infographics designed to provide visual signals as to where real fan demand exists, how effectively organizations capture that demand, and which brands are building durable digital authority in the United States.
The US Fan Index contains feature sections with some of our data partners: LALIGA, Manchester City, PDC and Wrexham AFC.
Public extracts:
Who is the report for?
This edition is designed for:
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US-facing sports leagues and franchises
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International teams, leagues, sports publishers and rights-holders targeting American audiences
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Broadcasters and OTT platforms assessing market opportunity
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Sponsors, publishers and commercial partners evaluating brand alignment and business case scenarios
Key findings from the US Digital Fan Index 2026….
Which US League franchises are most dependent on digital traffic?
According to our findings in the US Digital Fan Index 2026™, the MLS and MLB are the US leagues whose teams are most dependent on digital traffic. Based on the volume and type of digital traffic as well as the team’s revenue and total traffic value, the MLS and MLB gained a digital dependency score of 87%.
The WNBA was just behind on 85.5% with the NBA recording a digital dependency score of 77.5%.
While teams in the NHL and NFL have strong online communities, they play a slightly less significant role in terms of commercial metrics, recording digital dependency scores of 68% and 66.5% respectively.
Please see the bar chart below:
Which US Sports teams most utilise reddit within their online footprint?
One of the standout findings from the US Digital Fan Index is that the biggest (most valuable) league franchises contain teams who have share of their overall engagement coming via their reddit membership base. Teams in the NFL and NHL both average a reddit membership share that makes up 4% of total engagement (reddit members, web searches, website traffic, youtube subscribers and instagram followers).
Teams in the NBA record the highest metric for this with 5%.
Which US Sports teams capture the highest share of their search traffic?
Less established leagues such as the MLS and WNBA see a lower search share within their total engagement (20% and 22% search share respectively). While this means more traffic is captured by these franchises via their platforms, it also suggests that there is limited reach for these franchises online compared to incumbants such as the NFL (38% search share) and NBA (27%).
Please see the following bar chart:
How the US Digital Fan Index 2026 is being shared and interpreted
We’re seeing the index shared internally with commentary and walkthroughs, rather than just forwarded as a PDF.
We are also seeing and/or encouraging the following patterns:
- Opened at a rate c.x2.3 times per recipient
- Global distribution tracking at c.40% USA, 30% UK, 15% Europe (Non UK), 15% ROW
- Shared on direct requests rather than cold distribution
- Business/Organization focused: c.80% desktop engagement
- Circulating via LinkedIn posts, DMs, and internal emails (see below)
The Hyperset Digital Sports Network™
The US Edition is published as part of the Hyperset Digital Sports Network™, a framework that creates digital connections and unique data reference points among it’s members to increase long-term authority and visibiltiy in modern internet search engines for each participant.
Participating organisations are referenced across the wider Network, reinforcing authority and visibility beyond the report itself.
Please click here to find out more about the benefits of the Hyperset Digital Sports Network™ and application criteria.
Request to join the mail list
The mail list for The Digital Fan Engagement Index™ compromises of sports industry professionals from soccer leagues across the world, international rugby, cricket and athletic federations, the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, F1 and NASCAR franchises, major broadcasters, sports publishers and academic institutions among others. To request being added to the mail list please email stefan@hypersetgroup.com.