Beyond the Hype: A Clear-Eyed Look at Sports Tech in 2025

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The sports industry is in a powerful place as we move into 2025. Private equity is flooding into the NFL, Netflix is experimenting moving from entertainment giant to sports broadcaster, and AI is promising (still) to revolutionise everything from coaching, broadcasting, content and anything that moves…

Traditional power structures are being dismantled as athlete-led content platforms rival league viewership, spatial computing reshapes how we experience games, and streaming giants rewrite the rules of sports broadcasting. The industry isn't just evolving—it's undergoing a fundamental redistribution of influence, as the lines between technology companies, media entities, and sports organisations continue to blur.

In my first official newsletter, I’ll unpack some of the trends and disruptions in 2025 in Sports, Technology, and Culture.

P.S. If you enjoy this newsletter I’d love it if you could share it with your friends using my referral program at the bottom.

The AI Reality Check? When Hype meets ROI. 

2025 will be the year that AI will continue to make waves across every industry, but it should also be the year that we focus more attention on the return on investment for sports entities. It’s important that as I write this chapter, I also profess that I am 100% behind AI and believe in the hype, however, I am also a logical thinker and realise that many sports entities must see tangible returns on investments through reduced costs or new revenue streams to fully buy into the ‘hype’.

They need to see more examples like Nielsen Sports, who reduced their video analysis costs by 75% or like the football teams across Europe who are seeing real and tangible reductions in team injuries through increased sports science methodologies and models. They need to read more studies like Stats Perform’s survey, demonstrating that AI-enabled sports media firms are 'three times as likely’ to find content commercialisation easier. 

For AI to truly transform sports, it needs to demonstrate sustainable returns at scale for smaller teams and organisations that can't afford expensive experiments or dedicated AI and Data Science teams. The sports organisations that thrive will not be the ones chasing the latest AI headlines but those finding practical, scalable applications that work for organisations of all sizes. The real AI revolution in sports will not be measured in headlines but in bottom lines.

Money Talks: Private Equity (PE) Continues To Accelerate.

Private equity's growing influence in sports is no longer just about deep pockets and headlines - it's about fundamental changes in how professional sports operate as businesses. You might counter that PE has always been important in Sport & not just in 2025 but I believe we see it move into the next gear, in part due to the NFL's recent policy shift, opening its doors to PE investment. We’re moving towards a world where sports teams are now technology companies, media enterprises, and entertainment platforms all rolled into one.

There is a reason why sports teams look so appealing to private equity investors, the returns can be impressive. One of the most spectacular returns on investment in recent times was Dyal HomeCount Partners’ investment in Phoenix Suns; a minority stake purchased at a $1.55 billion valuation in 2021 and then sold for $4 billion just eighteen months later. But it’s not just about incredible returns. PE firms are bringing professional management, technology innovation, and scaled operations to an industry that has historically operated more on passion than precision.

However, 2025 marks a critical inflection point. As PE continues flooding into sports, we're seeing a shift from pure financial engineering to genuine operational transformation. Teams are being pushed to modernise everything from their tech stacks to their revenue models. The question isn't whether PE will change sports - it's whether traditional sports culture can survive the transition from passion project to portfolio asset.

The sports organisations that thrive in this new era won't just be the ones with the biggest PE backers, but those who can balance institutional capital's demands for returns with sport’s unique cultural and community roles. Watch out for a new breed of sports ownership emerging in 2025 - one that combines PE's operational discipline with a deep understanding of what makes sports special in the first place. 

Search's New Playbook: When Fans Want Answers, Not Clicks.

I enjoyed reading this next trend in the IMG Digital Trends report for 2025 as it’s something I have been thinking about personally and they summarise the importance of this well. Check out their report here (after you’ve finished reading my newsletter 😄)

The website – the previously irrepressible stalwart of a sports organisation's digital presence – requires an overhaul of purpose. According to IMG’s report organic traffic across sites is dropping up to 64% after Google's AI Overviews launched, and sports entities face a stark reality: driving fans to their owned and operated platforms is becoming even more challenging. 

The value of owned platforms is being fundamentally challenged as sports content gets sucked into large language models (LLMs) and spat out as AI conversations. Fans increasingly want immediate answers, not endless scrolling. In a world where PerplexityAI reaches 10 million users and ChatGPT boasts 200 million weekly active users, sports organisations must transform their digital platforms from scoring and content repositories into experience hubs.

The future value of a sports website won't be measured in page views but in its ability to create unique, direct relationships with fans. Building strong membership offerings and insider access with content formats that can’t be ingested and summarised by AI will be vital. While AI might excel at delivering quick answers, it can't replicate the authentic connection between teams and their most engaged fans.

Lightweight but Heavy Impact: Can Smart Glasses Finally Make An Impact On Sports Viewing? 

While Apple Vision Pro dominated the spatial computing conversation in 2024, 2025 marks a pivotal shift toward more practical, everyday wearables in sports. The Vision Pro's impact on sports viewing was undeniable – offering incredible immersive experiences for NBA, MLS  and golf content – but its price point and form factor limited mass adoption. Enter the next wave: lightweight AR smart glasses that could finally crack the mainstream sports market. 

CES 2025 brought a wave of new announcements in this space – click here for an overview of the most exciting tech hardware reveals.

The question for 2025 isn't about the power of spatial computing - we saw that with Vision Pro. It's whether lightweight AR glasses can finally bridge the gap between impressive demos and everyday sports viewing. While Vision Pro showed us what's possible, 2025's wave of lighter, more affordable smart glasses might show us what's practical.

The Athlete-Led Media Revolution Continues!

I’ve written at length about the Athlete-Led revolution and the numbers continue to back that up: when Olympic rugby player Ilona Maher generated 465.6 million video views during the Paris Games, or when swimmer Henrik 'Muffin Man' Christiansen's food critiques averaged 6.1 million views per post, we're witnessing more than just viral moments – it's a fundamental shift in influence in sports media. Athletes are becoming media powerhouses in their own right, building direct-to-fan relationships that bypass traditional gatekeepers in increasingly creative ways.

@henrikchristians1

Guys, I think i’m going through withdrawals #fyp #olympics #paris2024 #olympictiktok #olympicvillage #muffinman

This shift is particularly evident in how Gen Z discovers sports, with athletes' personal content often driving their first connection to a sport or event. The future belongs to organisations that position themselves as platforms for athlete storytelling rather than restrictive gatekeepers. 

For a deeper dive into how athletes are reshaping the sports business, check out my recent article here.

I’d love to hear your big predictions for 2025; you can tell me here.

Views and analysis expressed in this newsletter are my own opinions and do not represent those of my employer.