Sports have always been the ultimate unifier — transcending geographic borders, rising above partisan politics and enabling multiple audiences (and generations) to find alignment — the little-known secret behind this global unifier? Technology.
Technology influences how athletes train and compete, how fans engage and consume content and how world-class venues are constructed. Technology has been quietly transforming the world of sports for years, with investment in areas like esports continuing to rise, surpassing a total of $2.5 billion in VC funding in 2018 — and some estimates predicting the sports tech sector will reach $30 billion by 2024.
With the 2020 Tokyo Olympics less than a year away, a massive amount of investment and innovation are pouring into the sports technology industry ahead of this globally unifying event. But which technologies are making the biggest impact? Where are investors placing their bets? Which sports are at the forefront of the technology revolution and which factors are holding the industry back?
Sports have always been the ultimate unifier — transcending geographic borders, rising above partisan politics and enabling multiple audiences (and generations) to find alignment — the little-known secret behind this global unifier? Technology.
Technology influences how athletes train and compete, how fans engage and consume content and how world-class venues are constructed. Technology has been quietly transforming the world of sports for years, with investment in areas like esports continuing to rise, surpassing a total of $2.5 billion in VC funding in 2018 — and some estimates predicting the sports tech sector will reach $30 billion by 2024.
With the 2020 Tokyo Olympics less than a year away, a massive amount of investment and innovation are pouring into the sports technology industry ahead of this globally unifying event. But which technologies are making the biggest impact? Where are investors placing their bets? Which sports are at the forefront of the technology revolution and which factors are holding the industry back?
“Anticipating the next fan engagement trend is critical, whether you’re a team, brand or media company,” says Tom Masterman, global head of Publisher Sales at Genius Sports Media, a leading provider of sports data and technology solutions. “Tokyo 2020 will be a make-or-break event for startups as well as incumbent technologies.”
Having worked on two Olympics at previous digital media companies, Masterman is aware of how quickly the Games come and go. “Among the questions that will keep many of us up at night include, ‘Will fans adopt my tech? Is my sponsorship integration a good experience? Did I choose the right channel partners?’ ”
Top three technologies for investment: Media and content-related platforms; measurement platforms for data, analytics and biometrics; and esports
From an investment perspective, media and content-related platforms, esports and measurement platforms for data, analytics and biometrics were among the top three areas of interest. Other notable areas include athlete tech and performance optimization, in-venue technology, gambling and gaming and recovery health and home fitness. This is a powerful indication of where venture capital funding focus is trending, given that more than 50% of respondents, coming from a wide array of areas in the industry, identified themselves as investors
“As investors, we see cyclicality in every industry except sports, which has the biggest consumer ecosystem. Sports had been a very traditional industry powered by legacy tech, but now with the advent of streaming, sports content media distribution is decentralized via social media platforms,” says Gayatri Sarkar, managing partner at Hype Capital, who offered her take on this investment trend. “The sports market has the opportunity to be a multitrillion-dollar ecosystem with technological advances such as 5G, digital collectible trading and the rise of esports, which will fuel new market and social behavior. As the infusion of deep tech continues in smart venue, gambling, performance biometrics and many more sub verticals where data is the engine, we’ll naturally see more and more deep tech investors entering the sports investment landscape.”
Basketball and esports are at the forefront of technology
While esports is a likely leader in the use of technology, with 79% of respondents placing it in the top three category, basketball remains the top pick, with 87% placing the traditional sport at the forefront of innovation.
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