Sports AI Citation Study: 1350 AI Answers Measured

The short answer

In Sports, 1350 AI answers were measured between May 2026 and August 2026. The most cited platform is YouTube at 4%, ahead of Wikipedia at 2.67%. That ranking differs from the general one: YouTube is cited 1.7 times more here than in the general ranking.

Sports is a video and reference sector, with social pages holding a stronger position than in most other markets.

Key figures

• 301025 AI answers analysed between August 2025 and August 2026
• 1820738 citations extracted from those answers
• 131349 distinct domains cited at least once
• 5 models measured separately: ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and Grok
• 79% of the questions asked in French, the rest in English

Which platforms the AIs cite in Sports

• YouTube: 4%
• Wikipedia: 2.67%
• Trustpilot: 1.56%
• Facebook: 1.41%
• Instagram: 0.45%
• Reddit: 0.37%
• Amazon: 0.22%
• WordPress: 0.22%
• Apple: 0.22%
• TripAdvisor: 0.07%

What this sector cites more than the average

• YouTube: 4% here against 2.35% in the general ranking, 1.7 times more
• Facebook: 1.41% here against 0.85% in the general ranking, 1.7 times more
• Wikipedia: 2.67% here against 1.62% in the general ranking, 1.6 times more

The leading source model by model

• ChatGPT: Wikipedia at 2%
• Gemini: YouTube at 9.11%
• Perplexity: YouTube at 2.89%

How to read these numbers

A citation rate of 2% means the source was cited twice for every 100 measured answers. Rates are computed per model against the number of answers of that model, so a model with a smaller sample never distorts a column. A source cited several times inside one answer is counted once per company block, which keeps a single verbose answer from dominating a month.

The distribution is worth as much as the ranking. The top three sources hold 74% of the citations counted in this table, 4 platforms sit above 1%, and YouTube is cited 1.5 times more often than Wikipedia. A market where three sources hold most of the citations rewards depth on those three rather than presence everywhere.

This sector was measured on 1350 answers, 96.9% of them in French, across 3 of the five models (ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity). The language mix matters when you read the ranking, because local platforms weigh more in French speaking markets.

What changed over the measured period

This sector was measured over 4 months, between May 2026 and August 2026, on 1350 answers, and 12 platforms recorded at least one citation. Its leading source, YouTube, fell from 6% in May 2026 to 0.53% in August 2026, which is the kind of movement that makes a ranking older than one quarter unreliable.

YouTube month by month in this sector

• May 2026: 6%
• June 2026: 9%
• July 2026: 1.87%
• August 2026: 0.53%

What this means in practice

Answers about clubs, events and equipment come from demonstrations and from reference entries, with local social pages filling in schedules and results. For a club or a sports business, the practical implication is that the fixture list, the schedule and the practical details need to exist as text somewhere the models can read, and that video is the format most likely to be cited for technique and equipment questions.

How to use this study

1. Publish schedules, results and practical details as text rather than as images.
2. Keep reference entries about the club or the competition accurate and current.
3. Use video for technique and equipment content, which is where it is cited.

How this study was measured

1. We run a panel of buyer questions every month, the questions people type before choosing a supplier.
2. Every question is sent to five AI: ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and Grok.
3. Every answer is parsed, every cited source is extracted and normalised to a domain and a platform.
4. The citation rate is the number of citations of a source per 100 measured answers, computed per model so an uneven number of answers per model never distorts a column.
5. The month is closed, the dataset is rebuilt, and the public files are republished on data.sorank.com.

Limits of this study

1. This panel is not a neutral sample of the web. The questions come from the sectors our users operate in.
2. The panel leans French: 237930 answers come from questions asked in French and 63095 from questions asked in English.
3. Model coverage is uneven: 87008 answers from ChatGPT, 87004 from Perplexity, 87000 from Gemini, 20011 from Claude and 20002 from Grok. The two smallest samples are read as direction rather than as precise values.
4. A citation is not a click. This study measures what the AIs cite, not what a reader does next.

The dataset behind this study

Every number on this page comes from the public Sorank dataset. The underlying figures, the monthly detail and the filters are available here:

Open the source data on data.sorank.com

Data updated on 2026-08-26.

How to cite this study

This study is free to quote, in an article, a deck or a report. Please cite the source and the measurement period, because the numbers move every month.

Sorank (2026). Sports AI Citation Study: 1350 AI Answers Measured. Sorank GEO studies, measured on 301025 AI answers collected between August 2025 and August 2026. Available at https://www.sorank.com/data/sports-ai-citation-study

Related studies

The same panel, read from another angle:

• AI Citation Study: Which Platforms the AIs Cite Most
• YouTube AI Citation Study
• Directories in AI Answers: Data Study
• All GEO studies

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