Christy Tanner

FAST is scaling faster than the infrastructure designed to support it. Audience adoption is real, advertiser interest is rising, and channels are multiplying but discovery, measurement, and standards remain uneven. Through my experience operating the FAST channel Swerve Sports, an important market reality has come into focus: success in this market isn’t just driven by content launches but also how content is surfaced, packaged, and understood.

It’s a new era for U.S. sports, from ESPN’s deals with the NFL and WWE to new competition formats from startup leagues such as INTENNSE and Athletes Unlimited. Why? We can look to Gen Z for the answers. Research shows that Gen Z’s media habits are fundamentally different from older generations and these preferences are reshaping media culture and economics.

Gen Z is rewriting the digital playbook, setting new standards for content discovery, engagement, and consumption. This generation is social-first, always on, and hyper-connected, and the details are outlined in Gen Z Culture Decoded, a new research report that I co-led with Mary Ann Halford of Halford Media Advisory. Our study revealed that 71% of Gen Z consumers turn to social platforms and YouTube as their primary discovery hubs.