SportsPro Podcast

In this special live edition of the SportsPro podcast, recorded at SportsPro Investment Summit in London, SportsPro editor Steve McCaskill is joined by Bex Smith, founder and CEO of Crux Football, and Michael Broughton, co-founder and partner at Sports Investment Partners, to look at the rise of disruptor properties.
They discuss disruptors as an investment asset and what separates a genuine opportunity from a money pit. What are the potential gaps in the market, business models and possible pitfalls?
The panel also attempt to answer why investors are increasingly drawn towards creating new sports properties rather than backing existing ones, identify potential new revenue streams and suggest which disruptors have come closest to cracking the code.

For decades, the sports industry has relied on broadcasters to fund growth, distribute content and monetise audiences. But what happens when that model starts to change?

In this episode, SportsPro CEO Nick Meacham sits down with Mark Locke, CEO of Genius Sports, to explore how leagues, teams and technology companies are adapting to a new era of fan monetisation.
 
Locke discusses Genius Sports' evolution from its betting roots into a global technology business, the company's acquisition of Legend, the growing role of AI and data ownership, and why he believes the next generation of sports growth will come from direct relationships with fans.
 
The conversation also examines the changing economics of media rights, the company’s NFL partnership, gaming as a future distribution channel and what sports organisations need to do to thrive in a more personalised digital world.
This is the first episode in SportsPro's New Economics of Fandom series, exploring how sport's commercial future is being rewritten.
 
Key topics:
Is the era of broadcast-driven sports growth coming to an end?
What does the future of fan monetisation actually look like?
Who will benefit most from AI in the sports industry?
Why did Genius Sports spend up to US$1.2bn acquiring Legend?
What might be the next billion-dollar revenue opportunity in sport?

Sport’s best content doesn’t happen by accident.
Behind every viral clip, every campaign that cuts through, every piece of creative work that moves the needle commercially, there's a person, a team, and a strategy. But rarely does that person, team or strategy get the recognition or coverage they deserve.
SportsPro and Greenfly’s recently launched Short-Form Showcase is designed to fill that void by amplifying the talent and teams behind the best short-form content being produced across the global sports industry.
Unveiled in July, the Showcase recognises the human craft, creativity and collective effort that goes into creating content that stops the scroll and delivers commercial impact by celebrating the people who make it happen. This is not a ranking or an award – it’s a curated exhibition of best-in-class operators and a collection of their most memorable work.
On this episode, SportsPro’s Michael Long is joined by Greenfly’s Gabby Vidal Castillo and Melissa Lawton, SailGP’s chief content officer and one of the 39 specialists named in the Showcase, to discuss the value and important of exceptional content operators, how strategy and insight guide the creative process, and where social-first sports content is heading next.
To view the full Short-Form Showcase, visit Home - SportsPro x Greenfly - Short-Form Showcase

F1 has gone from 13 commercial partners a decade ago to around 33 today, from a paddock that barred drivers from posting on social media to an always-on content operation, and from a linear US broadcast deal with ESPN to a streaming partnership with Apple.
 
Liam Parker, chief communications and corporate relations officer at F1, has a simple framing for all of it: none of it works unless the racing does.
 
In this episode of the SportsPro Podcast, produced in collaboration with Mics Out from BlackBook Motorsport, Parker joins motorsport editor Cian Brittle to discuss what "redefining reach" means in the Apple era, how F1 decides when its global partner roster is full, and why he would swap the word Americanisation for modernisation.
 
Recorded ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix, the conversation also covers the collaborative fix to this season's new power unit regulations, fan activation work with Heineken and Lego, the markets F1 believes are underserved — India chief among them — and how the sport is contingency-planning the end of its season amid geopolitical uncertainty.

SportsPro speaks to Paceteq chief executive Alexander Bodo to learn how decades of data analytics and AI experience in motorsport can be harnessed by soccer to drive performance, aid recruitment, and drive further efficiencies on and off the pitch.

Bodo explains why culture and technology has held back soccer in recent years, with a lack of unified data platforms and in-house skills among the barriers to adoption.

However, there are signs that things are changing, with a generation of data-savvy coaches and players and game changing AI technologies ready to deliver a revolution in soccer analysis.