FIS digital channels deliver record-breaking 2025/26 season

Apr 24, 2026·Inside FIS

FIS's 'I Love Snow' campaign contributed to record engagement in the 2025/26 season

FIS digital content, channels and services delivered another breakthrough season in 2025/26, connecting more fans to skiing and snowboarding than ever before and underlining the growing role of digital innovation in bringing the sport closer to global audiences.

Across the season (01.10.2025–31.03.2026), FIS owned social media channels generated:

3.5 billion reach (+114% Year on Year)
86 million engagements (+36% YoY)
1 million new followers, taking the overall FIS social audience to 3.6 million followers (excluding FIS Chinese channels)

This season showed the strength of FIS's growing digital ecosystem by connecting fans, athletes, National Ski Associations, events, communities and partners in new ways. The results across social media, FIS TV, CXP, Live Radio, podcasts and owned fan services are a strong signal for the future value of snow sports. A big thank you goes to the internal FIS teams, athletes, NSAs, partners and collaborators whose passion, expertise, teamwork, and commitment made this progress possible.– Benjamin Stoll, FIS Director of Digital & Innovation

Alpine Skiing led the way across social media, generating 1.56 billion reach and 40.9 million engagements (close to half of the overall social media performance) followed by Ski Jumping with 617 million reach and 10.6 million interactions. Cross-Country ranked third by reach at 365.7 million, while Freestyle and Park & Pipe showed particularly strong fan interaction, delivering 7.6 million and 7.8 million engagements respectively.

Short-form vertical video once again proved to be one of the strongest drivers of fan attention. The best-performing posts of the season included Freestyle and Alpine content reaching more than 31 million users per post, with the top Alpine Instagram video generating 1.83 million engagements.

Olympic momentum drives global attention

The Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games provided a major boost to FIS digital channels, generating a reach of 643.6 million, 15.1 million engagements and 216.9 thousand new followers across FIS social media during the Olympic period alone.

FIS also expanded its storytelling formats across the season, with the I LOVE SNOW campaign bringing athlete-led narratives to fans across social media and FIS TV.

The series 'Through My Eyes' delivered 41 episodes, generating 6.9 million reach, 107.2 thousand engagements and 22.6 thousand FIS TV views. 'A Special Letter' counted 30 episodes, reaching 4.7 million, and attracting 72.1 thousand engagements and 21.3 thousand FIS TV views.

The Olympic daily show 'I LOVE SNOW Real Talk', moderated by Olympic and Paralympic athletes and FIS content creators with diverse guests and their stories, emotions and perspectives, added a new live and social storytelling layer, delivering 3.1 million reach and 56.7 thousand engagements across 190 social posts beyond the live programming on FIS TV and FIS's YouTube channels.

FIS TV, Live Radio and podcasts expand FIS’s owned media ecosystem

FIS’s owned media platforms continued to gain momentum throughout the 2025/26 season, with FIS TV reaching 2.1 million unique users, up 93% year-on-year, and 2.5 million video views, up 67%. Total hours watched increased by 59% to 110.9 thousand hours, underlining the growing demand for FIS content beyond traditional broadcasts.

A major addition was the launch of FIS Live Radio, which brought live English audio commentary from all FIS World Cups directly into the FIS App and fis-ski.com. The new service quickly became an important part of FIS’s owned-platform offering, reaching one million total listens during the season.

Video-on-demand content also continued to grow, with 760 thousand unique viewers, one million views and 30.6 thousand hours watched — an increase of 85% year-on-year. Together with FIS podcast formats, this strengthened FIS’s ability to serve fans with live, on-demand and deeper storytelling content across the full season.

The new FIS podcasts added a deeper, long-form storytelling layer to FIS media offerings, with Alpine Pulse, SKIRIOUS PROBLEMS and Hidden Champions giving athletes and legends more space to tell the stories behind the results. Together, the three formats delivered more than 650 thousand total views and extended FIS’s reach across FIS TV, YouTube, Spotify and podcast platforms.

Looking ahead, podcasts can become an important pillar for always-on fan engagement, creating more context, personality and emotional connection beyond race weekends, while also offering attractive new formats for commercial and media partners.

Athletes become the engine of digital growth

One of the most significant success stories of the season was the continued growth of the FIS Content Exchange Platform (CXP), that gives athletes and National Ski Associations (NSAs) access to competition clips for use on their own digital channels. In its second season, CXP-enabled clips generated 114.9 million reach (+107% year-on-year growth), 6.5 million engagement (+150%) and an average engagement rate of 8.3%.

This underlines a clear trend: when athletes are empowered with high-quality competition content and storytelling access, they not only extend the reach of the sport, but they deepen the connection between fans and the personalities at the heart of it. This also enables new commercial assets, e.g. in the form of sponsored and branded content series, for all national associations and its athletes.

The FIS CXP has been a big step forward for the whole scene this season. It brings a different level of visibility and understanding into the sport, not just for us athletes but also for the fans following along. What I really like is how it helps bring people closer to the sport. You can feel that it gets the community more involved and excited, and that energy makes a huge difference for us as athletes.– Arvid Auner (AUT) - 2x Vice World Champion Parallel Slalom

Owned platforms build stronger fan relationships

Beyond social media and video, FIS continued to grow its owned digital platforms. The FIS App reached 325 thousand active user while the FIS website serviced 7.8 million active users. New story and moment formats generated 2.8 million story views and one million moment views. Through newsletters, sweepstakes, quizzes and gamification, FIS increased its total active unique contacts to 163 thousand.

This growth strengthens FIS's ability to build more personalized fan experiences and services across app, web, email, push notifications and future digital products.

China continues to show strong potential

FIS also saw continued growth across its Chinese digital platforms, with performance across Weibo, Douyin and RedNote reaching 135.3 million total views, 1.7 million engagements and 1.1 million followers. Engagement increased by 378% year-on-year, confirming the new FIS strategy of community - and engagement first - in a competitive Chinese sports and entertainment market.

A season of progress toward a unique platform for the future

The 2025/26 season marked another important step in FIS’s digital transformation while showing how a stronger digital ecosystem can create more value for fans, athletes, NSAs, commercial partners and the wider snow sports community.

From record-breaking social reach to athlete-powered content distribution, from FIS TV growth to stronger owned-platform engagement, FIS digital channels helped bring skiing and snowboarding to new audiences and deepen the connection with existing fans.

The season also highlighted how FIS is growing and utilizing value as a platform for sponsored and branded storytelling. Successful partner activations with brands and destinations such as Azerbaijan, Visa and HYLO showed how FIS can create customized content series and digital campaigns that connect partners authentically with athletes, disciplines, events and fan communities.

With Milano Cortina 2026 providing a major global stage, FIS has built a stronger foundation for the seasons ahead, one where digital innovation, athlete storytelling and partner integration can continue to grow the visibility, relevance and commercial value of snow sports worldwide.