Why sports engagement analytics is getting harder to interpret than it looks I’ve been looking at sports media datasets recently and something interesting keeps coming up. On the surface, engagement numbers like views, retention, and platform reach look straightforward. But when you dig into leagues that have recently shifted from traditional broadcasting to digital-first distribution, the interpretation becomes less clean. A good example is women’s volleyball in Europe, especially leagues like Italy’s LVF, where the reported engagement growth has been massive over a short period. What’s less discussed is how much of that jump is actually driven by distribution changes rather than just audience expansion. In a few cases I’ve seen, the shift isn’t only content-based, but infrastructure-driven, platform-level optimization, better tracking across devices, and algorithmic distribution across social and streaming channels.…