For anyone working on the business side of sports; especially in the Nordic region, the Stockholm Huddle is the premiere gathering where sports executives discuss digital innovation, media strategy, and how to best serve their fans.
Key Takeaways
-Personalization is top priority as rights holders are investing in tools and tech to deliver the right content to the right fan at the right time.
-Short-form content isn’t a trend but rather part of the larger broadcast. TikTok, mobile clips, and vertical video now define relevance.
-Clubs and athletes are key partners (and so are publishers) in supporting leagues by helping to fuel creativity across the ecosystem through their own channels.
Earlier this month, leaders representing some of the biggest organizations in the Nordics region were in the room, including from national leagues like SHL and Liiga, to leading broadcasters, and tech giant TikTok. The goal: to learn how sports rights holders are adapting to keep pace with the expectations of today’s fans. Over four high-energy sessions the message from both the stage and room rang clear: fans now expect faster, smarter, and more personal experiences. To stay competitive, content strategy has to deliver on all three.
Automation, Personalization & the Content Loop
The typical fan journey is starting to look more like a loop—a continuous cycle of engagement driven by data, content, and personalized delivery. Whether it’s using AI to power predictive ticketing in Finland, automated clip distribution in the Czech Republic, or personalized League Pass feeds for NBA fans across Europe, more organizations are adopting technology that enables them to serve fans smarter, faster, and more meaningfully.
We want to collect more kind of data from our customers…we are currently doing [that] so all the clubs and our leagues should have customer data platforms ready starting from next season.”
Liiga
These investments are helping organizations deliver personalized experiences more consistently, and at scale without adding complexity to the production process. The leagues that commit to building smart infrastructure today are setting the stage for more agile and responsive engagement in the future.
Extending the Game: Telling Your Story Whether the Game’s On or Off
From TikTok to Viaplay, every panel emphasized that the game itself is only one part of the content lifecycle. Audiences want more: behind-the-scenes access, personality-driven clips, and mobile-ready storytelling that meets them in the moments they scroll. That’s the “what.” Question is, “how?” Well, it’s technology that enables it. But by itself, is not enough.
I think that consistency builds identity and that momentum is what, you know, in the long run builds community.
Broadcasters like Viaplay are learning to balance long-form, premium content with real-time highlight delivery across social platforms and owned apps. Meanwhile, the NBA is scaling its localization efforts, delivering player-specific highlights by market and activating influencers to reach beyond its core channels.
The goal of all rights holders should be to build fandom beyond the final score while nurturing their own audiences.
Teams, Clubs, and Athletes Are the New Creators
Leagues are starting to build collaborative content ecosystems with the partners closest to them—empowering clubs, players, and even superfans (some of whom often have followings larger than the leagues themselves) to create, share, and monetize the story around their particular sport.
We entered a new content universe. Automation helped us scale, but it also pushed us to get more creative, hire new people, and think bigger about how we support clubs and connect with fans.”
From content days to athlete-led channels and influencer partnerships, creativity is expanding beyond league offices. And while not every post needs to meet TV production standards, authenticity and consistency matter. Some of the most impactful moments are captured on smartphones, voiced in a local dialect, and distributed by the people fans trust most—their favorite players, influencers, or even fellow supporters. It means going beyond mere “influencers,” and stepping into the renewed age of gatekeepers, the kind that is also experts in their field.
Actionable Insights
-Empower your ecosystem by giving clubs and athletes plug-and-play access to highlights, templates, and creative tools to maximize content distribution
-Build momentum beyond the match by including warmups, interviews, reactions, and replays in your content repertoire.
-Commit to daily, mobile-native, short-form content. Not everything has to be a major campaign—just show-up consistently
Looking Ahead at the Future of Content in the Nordic Region
The themes that emerged from the Stockholm Huddle mirror the shift in the larger industry. Fans are changing. Content formats are diversifying. Infrastructure is being rebuilt around flexibility, automation, and personalization.
With those changes come new opportunities: to reach more fans, serve them more directly, and build relationships (some call it “fanships”) that last beyond the season. For anyone interested in hearing more about the conversations that took place, feel free to reach out—whether you’d like a recording, a follow-up, or just want to chat about your current content strategy and are curious about how to make it all happen.