Picture, if you will, four people age 55-64 that you know. Parents, aunts and uncles, company executives, any will do. 
    Now try to figure out which one is into bungee jumping and street luge.
   They all may be.
   According to a report from Harris Interactive, older people are taking an increasing interest in sports, and 25 percent of adults 55-64 consider themselves fans of extreme sports.
   But there is a flip side, and not a good one for broadcasters: Interest in traditional sports is waning among younger viewers.
   "With the expansion of sports entertainment, there is a dilution of the fan base, and it becomes harder to meet the needs of young fans," says J. Nadine Gelberg, executive director of the sports and entertainment practice at Harris Interactive. Gelberg delivered the research, based on Harris’ monthly polling data, at last week’s Sports Summit in New York.
   Traditional sports, which are also the ones with the richest television contracts, will take the biggest hit from the aging fan base. 
    Gelberg found that among 18 to 24-year-olds there has been a 14 percent decline in interest over the last year in professional basketball, once considered a young person’s sport.
    Less surprisingly, interest in baseball has also declined by 10 percent, while the Olympics experienced a 13 percent drop. Both of those phenomena translated into lower television ratings last year.
   Football too has experienced a decline, though not as sharp. Gelberg says that in order for the NFL to head off major erosion, it’s going to have to start chasing more than just young men.
   "Traditional sports and their sponsors are going to have to shift their strategies. If the NFL is going to grow, it’s not going to be in the 25-54 demo. That’s pretty much saturated. It’s going to have to be with women, older people and Hispanics," she says.
   Women’s interest in sports has actually ticked upward over the last year. Tops on the list are college football, up 13 percent, and extreme sports, up a healthy 43 percent.
   Extreme sports represent one of the few across-the-board growth areas, with increasing interest among adults 18-34, adults over 55 and women. According to Gelberg, traditional sports must forge a marketing crossover to appeal to the extreme-sports fans.
   Because extreme sports have been largely popularized by ESPN’s X-Games, a sort of knock-off of the Olympics, perhaps the Olympics ought to steal a page from the imitator’s book.
   "The Olympic Games have an opportunity to rebound among young viewers in two years by leveraging their similarity to extreme sports. To renew interest in the 18-24 age group, they’re going to have to make the games feel that much more exciting and fresh," says Gelberg.
   A prime beneficiary of the old/new sports combination is Vince McMahon’s XFL, the marriage of traditional football with a pro-wrestling sensibility (and a little late-night Cinemax thrown in).
    Already, 58 percent of the 18-24 year-olds expressing interest in the XFL are female. Besides that, 41 percent of kids age 13-17 identify themselves as "diehard and avid fans" of pro wrestling. If McMahon is able to parlay that fan base into big viewership for the XFL, he will be well-positioned as those youngsters mature into grown-up consumers.
   Another growing fan base in sports are Hispanics, who have $440 billion in current buying power, Gelberg notes. Hispanics have shown a 14 percent increase in interest in extreme sports. Women’s tennis and PGA golf are also growth areas among Hispanics, registering gains of 14 percent and 17 percent, respectively.
   "Hispanics are a huge target, so sponsors and leagues really have to develop ways to find and keep Hispanic fans," Gelberg says.
    As for the aging demo of the sports fan, Gelberg believes it may not be all bad. All the new choices in sports "provide an opportunity to capitalize on sponsorship investments if well understood," she told the audience at the Sports Summit.
    The sooner leagues and sponsors recognize that sports are no longer just a young man’s game, the sooner those television ratings could turn around.

-Gabriel Spitzer is a staff writer for Media Life.

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