Surging consumption of mobile sports video by fans in all major age groups last year shows why marketers need to crank up their efforts to make campaigns more personal, suggests Nielsen?s look at the just-completed year in sports media.

The global information and measurement company?s State of the Media: 2014 Year in Sports Media Report found that amid a pronounced jump in smartphone use, digital video viewing, including mobile devices, grew 53 percent among the 18-34 set, 80 percent among 35-49 year olds and 60 percent among 50?64 year-olds. The results show how the mobile mind-shift continues to take hold in sports, its impact fueled by the immediacy and convenience of mobile to drive connection with highly engaged sports fans.

?The focus is more on personalization and video,? said Jeff Hasen, founder/CEO of Gotta Mobilize, a Seattle-based marketing consulting firm. ?Your team isn?t necessarily my team, and your way of consuming content on mobile is personal from the time of day to the format of the content delivered, to the ability to become more of a community member with fans who align with your passions.

?Better devices, lower data costs and the mobile user?s interest in having content on demand makes this the heyday for sports franchises and networks,? he said.

Driven by big sporting events including the World Cup, the ubiquity of mobile apps and devices throughout the world made 2014 the year sports consumption on mobile truly went mainstream. 

The growth in digital video viewing during the survey period was nothing short of extraordinary.

As consumption blossomed across the major demographics, fans continued to engage with sports content in a variety of different ways across a range of devices.

More than 70 million people consumed sports content on either their smartphones or computers. Of that figure, the top 20 percent consumed 85 percent of the total sports minutes viewed in third-quarter 2014, and more than eight times as many minutes as the second heaviest quintile.

In 2008, smartphones were a nascent technology, with only 10 percent penetration. By the end of 2010, however, that number jumped to 30 percent and crossed 50 percent in second-quarter 2012. 

Today, the figure sits at a staggering 75 percent, complemented by the rapid emergence of smart TVs and tablets, according to the report.

Smartphone penetration is especially high among Asian-Americans, who are 12 percent more likely to own smartphones compared to the average US consumer, according to the report. Hispanics and African-Americans are both eight percent more likely.

The on-the-go convenience of a smartphone is a perfect fit for the dynamic, fast-paced world of sports. 

A collective 72.3 million Americans consumed a staggering 7.1 billion minutes of sports content in October 2014 alone, and those numbers will only continue to grow. 

From October 2012 to 2014, average users increased their monthly time spent on mobile sports content by 35 percent.

During the survey period, the top apps by total minutes were ESPN Sports Center, MLB (Major League Baseball) At Bat, Team Stream, NFLMobile and Yahoo! Fantasy Sports ? Fantasy Football.

Sports fans are following the trend of more Americans favoring mobile over visiting desktop Web sites. Despite the decrease, however, sports fans who do still visit sports sites are spending more time online than ever.

The smartphone boom has boosted the emergence of daily fantasy sports sites. 

Although traditional fantasy leagues on ESPN and Yahoo are as popular as ever, daily fantasy football sites such as DraftKings and FanDuel are exploding, seeing the number of unique users on mobile skyrocketing 800 percent.

The appetite for mobile sports is seemingly insatiable, as time spent in the category grows.

??In conversations with ESPN for my Mobilized Marketing book written three years ago and the new one called Gotta Mobilize that is coming this spring, the constant theme is that sports fans have insatiable appetites,? Mr. Hasen said.

?Just when you think that there is more available than one can possibly want to assume, ESPN and others are bringing more.?