What sport and culture can learn from music's superfans

Music started counting its best fans

Luminate's data shows that 20% of US music listeners are now superfans, up from 18% the year before, and they behave very differently from everyone else. They spend an average of $113 a month on live music events, 55% more than the average listener, and almost three in four (73%) buy physical merchandise, compared with 26% of general music listeners.

Goldman Sachs has put a value on that behaviour. Its Music in the Air analysis assumes 20% of paid streaming subscribers are superfans who would spend about twice as much as the average subscriber, and estimates a potential annual revenue uplift of $4.3 billion based on 2026 projections. It's a modelled figure, but it's a big one.

Asia shows what happens when a platform builds for them. Tencent Music's Super VIP tier passed 20 million subscribers by the end of 2025, about 15.7% of its 127.4 million paying music subscribers. SVIP members pay around RMB 40 a month, against RMB 8 for the standard plan. That's a steep premium, and plenty of people pay it anyway.

Your best fans already want more from you. Have you actually given them anything to buy?

Sport's superfans look very familiar

Kantar studied sports fans across 11 markets, including Saudi Arabia, India and China, and found that 55% of 'Fanatics' pay for at least one sports subscription or specialty streaming service. Only 13% of Enthusiasts and 8% of Casual Fans do the same. The figure I'd pay most attention to is that 83% of Fanatics consider their favourite team part of their personal identity.

Yet superfans are rarely managed as a distinct group. MIDiA Research calls them 'a highly valuable yet consistently underleveraged audience segment', and says the lack of a standardised, empirical definition stops companies from systematically identifying and monetising them. Sport and culture share that problem, and it's a real one: you can't serve superfans you can't identify. A season-ticket list is a starting point, but on its own it isn't a superfan strategy.

Superfans matter to sponsors as well. Vevo's research found that 64% of fans are more favourable to brands aligned with artists and the industry, and some 69% are more likely to spend on brands that support their communities. That's the case for giving partners a real role in your superfan programme, beyond a logo on the membership card.

What you can borrow from music

What music has learned translates directly. Tiers come first: a premium option for committed fans, costing well above the standard product and worth the difference. Then access: rehearsals, training sessions and moments with artists or athletes that money can't otherwise buy. And finally community, a place where superfans talk to each other as well as to you.

None of this needs a big platform. A festival can offer an early-entry pass with a soundcheck, a club can run a members' panel that meets the head coach once a season, and a gallery can host curator-led previews for patrons. Whatever the format, the offer has to be exclusive, personal and repeatable, and I'd start with whichever idea you could launch next season without new technology.