In the old days, sports fans used to gather around the television to watch big events, like the yearly Super Bowl or the Summer Olympics. These days, however, with the rising technology that’s slowly working its way into our hands, the times are a-changing.

With that, though, comes new opportunity, as Adweek reports that online sports broadcasts aren’t just a win for the viewers, but also the marketers that are looking to reach out more to said audience.

A report from the Adobe Digital Index (ADI) indicates that the average consumer watches 4.2 authenticated sports videos on a monthly basis, for the third quarter of 2014. That’s a 10.5 percent increase over the previous year.

In addition, ESPN and other channels that broadcast sports events will soon have a greater outreach, thanks to services like Sling TV and other streaming services. Being able to do so on a more affordable plan than monthly cable should provide better opportunities for viewers — thus extending the audience.

NBC broadcast the Super Bowl online, as well as on television, and reported that a peak of 1.3 million people streamed the broadcast, indicating that there was a huge demand for online viewing instead of just huddling around the TV.

Marketers can take huge advantage of this, getting a better outreach through a specified ad campaign that ties into the content. Per ADI, online viewers actually see 66 percent more ads per video than watching sports content than they do watching regular, non-sports related content.

As you can see from the chart above, streaming possibilities also appear great outside of the United States, as the NBA, NFL and MLB all have decent overseas audiences, along with their domestic ones. And there’s no question that events like the World Cup would have a big impact if they manage to introduce some form of streaming service for its next event. The online hype behind the 2014 World Cup was proof enough of that, as you can see in the chart below.

The more sports stream over into the digital world, the more both fans and marketers will benefit. Sure, television may be getting a little shut out in the process, but there’s no doubt the popularity of the programming itself would remain as high as ever. Marketers certainly understand the benefit of streams that can be seen anywhere in the world, unlike broadcast TV that is limited to markets where they have agreements in place, Fans are where you find them, and by putting sports content online many more fans might be found.