Could Vertical Video Change How We Watch Sports?

For decades, sports were built for wide-screen TV broadcasts, but the rise of social media could be flipping that assumption on its head.

Traditional broadcasts easily show a football field stretching sideline to sideline, a baseball defense spread across the diamond, or the full geometry of a basketball offense coming into view as a possession develops. 

But the place people increasingly discover sports is a phone held upright. That shift has already remade highlights, athlete content and social distribution. Now, as Hollywood and new sports startups test programming conceived for the vertical feed, the bigger question is whether live sports will follow. 

Hollywood’s mobile-first bet

The vertical video story is no longer just TikTok dances, quick highlights and bad phone footage from the stands. It is becoming a real entertainment business.

Microdramas, which are short, serialized scripted shows designed for a phone screen, are now a substantial global category. The episodes are typically one or two minutes long, built around cliffhangers and intended to be watched in a vertical feed rather than from the couch. One estimate put the global microdrama market at $11 billion in 2025, with expectations for significant further growth.

But the more interesting signal for sports may be a recent Hollywood Reporter look at World 1, a new company attempting to create “microsports” designed specifically for vertical video. The pitch is blunt: Sports have traditionally been constructed for television, but younger audiences have moved to phones.

World 1 looks to invent 30-second, high-stakes competitions where the highlight essentially is the sport. The venture has investors including Mark Cuban and a founding group that includes 10 Olympic medalists.

Sports already went vertical

TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts and Snapchat have become core distribution channels for every major league, team and athlete. 

The NBA can turn a single dunk, tunnel arrival or bench reaction into a vertical clip that gets more attention than a full quarter of a game. MLB can package a strikeout sequence, a home run trot or a mic’d-up moment for a phone-first audience that may never open a linear broadcast. 

The NFL knows the same thing about sideline reactions, quarterback throws and the weekly churn of highlights.

MLB said posts using #MLB grew nearly 60% in 2025, and its global TikTok accounts had more than 10.7 million followers. The broader shift is less about any one platform than it is about packaging. 

The old model was to put a game on television and cut a few clips afterward. The new model treats vertical video as the front door: discovery happens on the feed; deeper fandom, subscriptions and live viewing may come later.

The sports that fit best

Basketball is probably the cleanest fit among major U.S. sports. The action is naturally compact, the key players are usually close to the ball and the sport’s visual appeal works in a tighter composition. A vertical basketball feed will still lose some off-ball movement, but it can capture the essential drama of many possessions.

Tennis and combat sports may fit even better. The action is centered, the camera already tends to track a small number of participants, and viewers rarely need a panoramic view to understand a knockout, a rally or a break point. 

Baseball is a mixed case. A vertical frame can be excellent for a pitcher-batter confrontation, especially with pitch data and graphics layered into the empty space above and below the action. It is less useful when a ball is hit into a broad outfield gap or a runner is taking an extra base.

Sources: DataReportal and YouGov

There is an obvious caveat here. Short-form consumption does not necessarily mean people want to watch a three-hour baseball game in portrait mode. In fact, it may mean the opposite: fans increasingly expect different experiences depending on the device and circumstance.

A phone is for catching up during lunch, checking a score while watching another game, watching highlights in bed or following a player. A television is still for settling in, seeing the entire field and treating the game as the main event.

Could live games be built for portrait?

A real vertical live broadcast cannot just be a traditional feed cropped down the middle. That works for a free throw or a batter in the box. It breaks down when the receiver, winger or corner outfielder disappears beyond the edges of the frame.

The better version would use a separate mobile production with dedicated cameras, a vertical director, graphics designed for portrait screens and perhaps a feed that follows a featured player rather than trying to replicate the main telecast. AI-assisted smart cropping could help track the ball or identify the most relevant part of the action, but it will not solve every problem. If the camera does not capture the right piece of the play in the first place, no algorithm can manufacture the missing field.

A vertical feed could also serve as an alternate broadcast with live betting data, fantasy updates, player tracking and creator commentary. It could be personalized around a favorite athlete. It could live beside a horizontal main feed, not in place of it. Wearables and smaller-screen devices could make the format even more relevant.

A complement, not a replacement

The smart bet is not that television goes away. Big games remain communal, and widescreen still makes the most visual sense for most live sports. Sports fans have spent generations learning to read the whole field, the spacing and the slow build of a game. 

But sports media is becoming increasingly format-specific. Television and large-screen streaming will handle the main live event. Phones will handle highlights, second-screen viewing, real-time clips and athlete-driven storytelling. 

Vertical video is not the future of all sports viewing. But the leagues that get it right will not merely crop their existing product. They will figure out which moments, stories, and even competitions are actually better when built for the way fans already hold their phones