Pull up any major sports team’s Instagram right now. Find their most recent post, and scroll the comments. You’ll likely find fans chatting about their favorite player or the most recent game, but you’ll also find something else: spam.
According to Respondology’s 2026 Business of Comments report, 81% of all spam in sports comment sections is illegal streaming links or ticketing scams. Not bots pushing random content. Active, targeted operations aimed at people who are already engaged with your brand.
The why isn’t complicated. Social platforms are high-traffic, trusted-brand environments, and of course bad actors show up. What matters more is what happens after they do.
The Most Valuable Space a Sports Brand Has
For sports brands, the comment section is where fan passion shows up in real time. A walk-off win, a blockbuster trade, a playoff run picking up steam. The response happens in the comments before it happens anywhere else. That community is part of what makes sports different from every other vertical.
68% of buyers read comments before making a purchase decision. For sports teams, that means a fan considering tickets, merchandise, or a streaming package is checking the comment section before converting. What they find there shapes what they do next.
For a lot of fans, the comment section is where they experience the team between events. Not the app. Not the email list. The comment section, where thousands of other fans are showing up and reacting to the same moments at the same time. That’s what’s at stake when fraud shows up.
Ad Performance Starts in the Comment Section
When a sports organization boosts a post, paid promotion amplifies everything in the frame, including the fake ticket listings and pirated stream ads sitting three comments down from the one your social manager just replied to. A team paying to drive traffic to their content is sending that audience past the criminal links in the replies.
That exposure extends beyond any single league. According to a 2025 Lloyds Bank report, more than three-quarters of Premier League football ticket scams last season originated on social media. For many fans, the comment section is the first place they encounter that fraud.
Your ad budget isn’t creating the problem. But it is scaling it, and the fix doesn’t require a budget line. It requires moderation that runs as fast as your ads do.
Sports organizations across the NFL, NBA, NHL, NASCAR, and Premier League run this as standard practice. Proactive comment moderation drives a 7.4% ROAS increase on Meta paid ads and a 17.6% ROAS lift on TikTok campaigns. Authentic fan conversations convert. Audience protection and ad performance turn out to be the same lever.
The Comment Section Is Infrastructure, Not a Cleanup Problem
Comment moderation has mostly been framed as a community health problem: keep conversations civil, reduce toxicity, handle the occasional bad actor. That framing is valid as far as it goes. For sports brands, it undersells what’s actually at stake.
A protected comment section isn’t just clean. When the fraud and noise are removed, what’s left is real fans having real conversations. That’s where the value compounds.
Protect the conversation, and you create the conditions for something authentic. Understand what’s happening in it, and the comment section starts telling you things: what’s resonating, what’s generating friction, what fans want before they say it anywhere else. Act on that intelligence, at scale, in your brand voice, and the comment section stops being something you maintain and becomes a channel that works for you.
The Comment Section Is the Most Accessible Fan Touchpoint You Have
The comment section reaches more fans than your stadium does. It runs before games, after them, and every day between. For most fans, it’s their primary touchpoint with a team on any given week.
Right now, spam in those spaces is targeting fans. That’s a specific problem with a specific solution, and it’s one of the most direct ways a sports brand can protect the relationships it’s already worked to build.
The fraudulent links don’t have to stay there. Respondology can help.
81% of Sports Comment Spam Is Fraud. Here’s How to Fix It.
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Pull up any major sports team’s Instagram right now. Find their most recent post, and scroll the comments. You’ll likely find fans chatting about their favorite player or the most recent game, but you’ll also find something else: spam.
According to Respondology’s 2026 Business of Comments report, 81% of all spam in sports comment sections is illegal streaming links or ticketing scams. Not bots pushing random content. Active, targeted operations aimed at people who are already engaged with your brand.
The why isn’t complicated. Social platforms are high-traffic, trusted-brand environments, and of course bad actors show up. What matters more is what happens after they do.
The Most Valuable Space a Sports Brand Has
For sports brands, the comment section is where fan passion shows up in real time. A walk-off win, a blockbuster trade, a playoff run picking up steam. The response happens in the comments before it happens anywhere else. That community is part of what makes sports different from every other vertical.
68% of buyers read comments before making a purchase decision. For sports teams, that means a fan considering tickets, merchandise, or a streaming package is checking the comment section before converting. What they find there shapes what they do next.
For a lot of fans, the comment section is where they experience the team between events. Not the app. Not the email list. The comment section, where thousands of other fans are showing up and reacting to the same moments at the same time. That’s what’s at stake when fraud shows up.
Ad Performance Starts in the Comment Section
When a sports organization boosts a post, paid promotion amplifies everything in the frame, including the fake ticket listings and pirated stream ads sitting three comments down from the one your social manager just replied to. A team paying to drive traffic to their content is sending that audience past the criminal links in the replies.
That exposure extends beyond any single league. According to a 2025 Lloyds Bank report, more than three-quarters of Premier League football ticket scams last season originated on social media. For many fans, the comment section is the first place they encounter that fraud.
Your ad budget isn’t creating the problem. But it is scaling it, and the fix doesn’t require a budget line. It requires moderation that runs as fast as your ads do.
Sports organizations across the NFL, NBA, NHL, NASCAR, and Premier League run this as standard practice. Proactive comment moderation drives a 7.4% ROAS increase on Meta paid ads and a 17.6% ROAS lift on TikTok campaigns. Authentic fan conversations convert. Audience protection and ad performance turn out to be the same lever.
The Comment Section Is Infrastructure, Not a Cleanup Problem
Comment moderation has mostly been framed as a community health problem: keep conversations civil, reduce toxicity, handle the occasional bad actor. That framing is valid as far as it goes. For sports brands, it undersells what’s actually at stake.
A protected comment section isn’t just clean. When the fraud and noise are removed, what’s left is real fans having real conversations. That’s where the value compounds.
Protect the conversation, and you create the conditions for something authentic. Understand what’s happening in it, and the comment section starts telling you things: what’s resonating, what’s generating friction, what fans want before they say it anywhere else. Act on that intelligence, at scale, in your brand voice, and the comment section stops being something you maintain and becomes a channel that works for you.
The Comment Section Is the Most Accessible Fan Touchpoint You Have
The comment section reaches more fans than your stadium does. It runs before games, after them, and every day between. For most fans, it’s their primary touchpoint with a team on any given week.
Right now, spam in those spaces is targeting fans. That’s a specific problem with a specific solution, and it’s one of the most direct ways a sports brand can protect the relationships it’s already worked to build.
The fraudulent links don’t have to stay there. Respondology can help.
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