MIT Sloan Takeaways, AI Voice for Fan Engagement, and Creating Sports Analytics Platforms Without Coding.

Welcome to the tenth edition of The Sports Stack. You may be wondering why we didn’t land in your inbox last week. I have decided that a 2x month cadence allows me to write better editions. They will be slightly longer but much more in-depth and valuable. I hope you enjoy them. This week, we have another incredible start-up spotlight with Staked AI, as well as:

• What I learnt from the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference.

• Building a Golf Analytics Platform with a Single Prompt.

You might have seen OpenAI’s 4o image generation announcement this week - it’s incredible. I’m using the updated model to create some of this week’s images. Can you tell which ones?

🎁 Don’t miss The Sports Stacks First Party Data Playbook, which is linked further below - it’s full of great insights.

ℹ️ What did I learn from the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference?

Although I didn’t attend the conference, it was interesting to catch up on the panels and trends and see many of the trends that I have written about over the past year being discussed. It’s evident that sports leaders are starting to take the shifts in fan behaviour and technological advancements seriously. 

You can find all the talks here for free. It’s a treasure chest of information and insights.

Key Themes:

I’ve linked to some of the most relevant talks on YouTube for each theme that was discussed at the event, but I recommend going deeper on the YouTube channel, as there are numerous talks, start-up pitches, and other videos.

• The evolving future of the fan.

• AI applications in sports performance.

• Athlete-led media platforms.

• Personalised fan experiences utilising modern technology.

• Women’s sports investment.

• Globalisation of sport and private equity investments.

One of the most interesting talks I have listened to so far was “Unlocking a Commercial Advantage Through Performance Marketing" by Tom Huggins. Tom focused on how sports and entertainment properties can generate significant new revenue by adopting a performance-driven partnership approach, shifting from traditional entitlement-based models and moving to end-to-end activations centred around the fan. Importantly, technology is key to this.

What did I learn?

The value of fans: Engaged fans are always your most loyal consumers. They spend more, they do it quickly, and they contribute regularly. However, in return, they expect personalised, immediate, and convenient experiences, similar to their interactions with major tech platforms. 

The need for a shift in partnership approach: The industry has been "guilty of outsourcing" its most valuable asset, the fan, to social media platforms where organic reach has significantly declined (from 13-15% to approximately 2%). Rights holders need to "swing the relationship with fans back in their favour" to unlock direct-to-consumer offerings and attract greater brand investment.

The size of the digital marketing opportunity: In 2025, brands are expected to invest £800 billion in digital marketing, representing 75% of the total marketing spend, while the sports partnership industry is set at £68 billion, growing at an annual rate of 5-7%. This demonstrates a big opportunity to channel more brand expenditure into sports and entertainment by showcasing performance.

What are the key principles of performance marketing for sports rightsholders and brands?

• Growing your audience: Focusing on first-party data to ensure you own the fan relationship. 

• Enriching your data: Gathering richer data sets to segment and personalise communication for a more significant impact.

• Converting that audience efficiently: Demonstrating bottom-of-the-funnel impact for brands or direct-to-consumer purposes.

Tom focused on an example that Wasserman supported for Tottenham Hotspur and AIA.

By creating immersive fan experiences and using rights and assets to capture data, they have achieved significant results:

• AIA can tell its story 5.5 times better through partnership content compared to the open market.

• Leads back to AIA agents have a 3.5 times better cost per click than non-partnership sources.

• These leads convert 7 times higher than generic sources.

• The partnership generates leads for AIA for $17 compared to their average market rate of $100 per validated lead, representing an 83% reduction in cost per lead.

• This end-to-end activation has the potential to drive 1.1 million people to a lead generation destination and capture and validate leads for 236,000 people, representing a value of $19.48 million on top of AIA's existing $50 million sponsorship.

I have created a guide for conducting first-party data audits tailored to sports organisations. The Sports Stack First-Party Data Audit Playbook provides a practical framework for evaluating your current strategy and recognising immediate opportunities.

You can access this detailed playbook by sharing The Sports Stack with ONE friend or colleague using the link below. Once complete, the playbook will be emailed to you.

🗣️ Start-up Spotlight: Staked AI - Can AI Voice Become The Next Important Content Distribution Channel For Sports?

This week, I spoke with Chris Shreeve from Staked AI for our start-up spotlight. AI audio has its detractors, but as you will see from the demo below, Staked AI’s product should simply be considered voice. Its genuine human element is amazing.

A little bit about Chris.

Chris Shreeve is a serial entrepreneur with experience in advertising and sports technology. Having worked for the Seattle Mariners, founded a programmatic agency through its exit, and launched a sports app development firm, he offers a unique perspective on the sports industry. His connections in sports technology and social media expertise on LinkedIn led to a partnership with Staked AI Founder Mark Antal.

Tell me about Staked AI and how it was founded.

[Chris] Staked AI was founded on the belief that fans crave curated sports content, yet the broader sports industry hasn't cracked the code on how to scale personalised content that drives real engagement. There is more content and data in sports than consumers know what to do with, and the media landscape continues to expand exponentially. The challenge lies not in content creation but in utilising automation to curate content for individuals beyond simple text-based formats.

We believe that AI-generated audio is set to transform digital user experiences over the next five years. As personalisation becomes the norm, sports enterprises struggle to deliver it at scale. Emotionally intelligent AI audio is the key to unlocking fan engagement, retention, and monetisation, and Staked AI is defining the category of AI-powered sports audio. Currently, we offer AI audio content as a service that is tailored to our clients' audiences and business objectives. Later this year, we will progress towards full personalisation and conversational AI agents.

What is Staked AI’s vision and goal?

[Chris] Our vision is to power millions of personalised fan experiences each day through AI voice in sports. Our goal is to establish the infrastructure that enables personalised content development at scale, utilising podcast-style AI voice as the means for creating engaging sports content.

How is Staked AI using technology to impact sports?

• Emotionally Intelligent Voice AI – Humanlike, sports-specific audio commentary.

• Hyper-Personalisation – AI-powered content optimised for each listener based on behavioral and contextual fan data.

• Staked AI stands out by having audio models that are trained to “speak the language of fans” by pronouncing player names correctly and using casual sports speaking conventions (i.e. in soccer (football 😉 ), a “game” should be called a “match”, a “jersey” should be called a “kit”, a “field” should be called a “pitch” etc.)  

• Game Recaps & Previews – Timely content customised for each client’s audience and business objectives (i.e. viewership, content engagement)

• Betting & Fantasy Insights – Personalised analysis to drive high-value user actions (i.e. sign-ups, transaction volume)

Staked AI’s partnership with WagerGames

WagerGames integrates social media feeds into sportsbook apps. Staked AI sparked a partnership with them during the 2025 Super Bowl weekend.

• User Receptivity: Since launching the partnership, Staked AI ranks in the top 10% of followed accounts.

• Delivering B2B Value: Staked AI’s content has performed in the top 20% of bettor activation among all affiliate creators working with WagerGames.

• Results: Staked AI has proven that consumers engage with AI voice content and take action that drives real business results for B2B partners.

Here’s a short video of Staked AI’s technology working with WagerGames. Staked AI powers the AI-generated podcast-style audio that is layered on top of a bet recommendation that users can make with one click of a button. It enables businesses to create valuable real-life audio that can enhance existing content, such as betting odds.

If you’d like to learn more about Staked AI you can reach out to Chris directly: [email protected].

🛠️ Creating a Golf Analytics Platform with a Single Prompt.

Have you heard of Lovable? Lovable is creating what it describes as "the final piece of software”, an AI-powered tool that transforms descriptions into functional products without needing any coding skills. Since its launch three months ago, Lovable hit $4 million ARR in the first four weeks and $10 million ARR in two months, all with a team of just 15 people, making it Europe’s fastest-growing startup ever.

Why is this important? Similar to our Replit demo a few weeks ago, Lovable is breaking down the technology barriers for entrepreneurs and creators. I wanted to try and test it with some sports examples to see what I could build. 

In the following video, you’ll see how I ‘one-shotted’ a golf stats performance website, which is real and usable. Check it out: https://fairwayanalytics.co.uk/ 

What can you do with Fairway Analytics?

• Create an account/login. 

• Add your golfing profile, including clubs and yardage.

• Add your rounds and stats. 

• Measure your important golf performance numbers, such as strokes gained.

The first iteration, shown in the video, was built with one prompt in about 5- 6 minutes. Since then, I have spent about another 30 minutes prompting and adding some functionality to the point where it’s close to being a minimally viable product and one that people could use. If you have an idea, there is no longer anything stopping you from shipping. I spent about $25 (A lovable subscription and $5 for the domain to launch this.) 

I did not write one line of code for this website. (The video is sped up to make it shorter)

🗞️ Quick Hits: This Week’s Stories & Updates.

• Good Good Golf, the next-generation golf, media, and lifestyle brand, has announced a $45 million funding round led by Creator Sports Capital, a newly established investment firm.

• I’m sure you all saw the Boston Celtics deal, but did you know it doesn’t include the arena? That was the biggest takeaway from the news, particularly considering the importance of stadium revenues. The franchise does not own the venue. Instead, the Celtics lease the arena from Delaware North, which manages TD Garden and also owns the Boston Bruins.

• Formula 1 has added a ‘ghost car’ comparison to their broadcast, and it’s incredible. It reminds me of the racing games on the playstation when I was younger.

• As March Madness begins, the NCAA CTO lays out his technology agenda for SBJ.

• Super insight from Malph Minns on whether the billion-dollar gamble of rebranding FIFA to EA SPORTS FC™ has been a success.

Thanks for reading!
Mark