Now in its 36th edition, the annual Sportel conference in Monaco remains one of the foundational fixtures on the global sports business calendar. While it continues to serve as an exceptionally important forum for traditional media rights negotiations, the event has evolved significantly. Today, Sportel stands as a major international showcase for sports technology, as well as a premier platform for both new and established properties to connect, network, and share their latest strategic updates.
At this year’s event, attendees heard from a high-profile roster of industry leaders. LaLiga president Javier Tebas shared his candid views on soccer governance and Manchester City, executives from Mediapro explained the strategic reasoning behind their recent corporate rebranding, and representatives from The Overlap discussed their meteoric rise to become one of the most influential content platforms in modern soccer. Across three days of intensive panels, presentations, and networking, a multitude of storylines emerged, highlighting the shifting dynamics of the industry. Among them, five major trends stood out in particular, charting the course for the future of sports media, technology, and investment.
Premium rights keep rising while the middle gets squeezed
The changing structural dynamics of the sports media market have been apparent for some time, but the divide became starkly clear in Monaco. The rapid rise of streaming services has allowed broadcasters to become much more data-oriented and strategic in how they acquire rights. Consequently, media buyers are heavily prioritizing big-ticket properties that reliably drive customer acquisition and retention, while also benefiting from massive live audiences that deliver high-value advertising revenue.
This market evolution has greatly benefited premier properties such as the National Football League (NFL), the National Basketball Association (NBA), and English soccer’s Premier League, all of which have secured significant, record-breaking increases in the value of their recent broadcast deals. However, as these elite competitions command a greater proportion of overall broadcaster budgets for sports rights, other properties are left scrambling for a smaller remaining slice of the pie. This polarization is leading to stagnant or, in some cases, contracting media revenues for mid-tier organizations.
At Sportel, multiple speakers emphasized that while traditional media rights will continue to provide vital income for properties capable of commanding premium fees, organizations across the board will need to uncover and develop alternative sources of revenue moving forward.
"I think properties are seeing that you cannot depend entirely on your media deal to drive your property," said Hillary Mandel, executive vice president and head of Americas rights at IMG. "The dollars are incredibly important, but the ecosystem that sits around that… you’ve got to own it yourself."
Jeff Roth, founding partner at Bruin Capital, echoed these sentiments regarding the market polarization. "I agree with the middle squeeze, and if you’re in that middle, it just becomes more important to focus on match day, sponsorship, streaming, kind of businesses that we invest in… it’s even more important for the folks that cannot rely on doubling your media rights every seven years when you go to market."
Creators are now partners, not a threat, as sport becomes more than the live event
YouTube maintained a significant presence in Monaco this year, sharing the stage with prominent industry players including The Overlap, the International Olympic Committee (IOC), and LiveMode across the multi-day conference. The overwhelming industry consensus was that although live broadcast rights remain the foundational lifeblood of sports media, content creators and digital influencers are now playing an indispensable role in driving daily engagement and new revenue streams across the entire industry.
"Live is the most important thing. Live drives everything," explained Scott Melvin, chief executive of The Overlap. "Rights, whilst they are king, are becoming prohibitively expensive… Very few creators, if any, will ever be able to afford Premier League rights. So, the opportunity is owning… If you can’t own the rights, own the conversation, and be 24/7."
Pedro Pina, vice president of YouTube EMEA, agreed with this assessment, pointing out key consumption habits observed during major international tournaments. He noted that an astounding 80 per cent of World Cup content viewership on YouTube took place in between actual matches, highlighting the insatiable appetite fans have for surrounding commentary and analysis.
Fans love to know what happens in between matches, they want to comment, and they want to have a conversation led by their own chosen influencers and creators, Pina added. He warned that rights holders and traditional broadcasters who fail to embrace this ongoing trend face a potential value leak as younger, digitally native viewers simply bypass official, legacy channels entirely.
It is not about creators; it is about viewers, Pina emphasized, noting that trying to force consumers into behaviors they reject is unsustainable. Water finds its way, and viewership follows the exact same principle.
In response to this shifting consumer demand and the reality of stagnating media rights values in certain sectors, many rights holders are actively pursuing non-exclusive partnerships with creator-led channels that serve highly targeted audiences. The Overlap stands out as one of several digital creator networks to be awarded Bundesliga soccer rights, while LiveMode is successfully building on its experience sublicensing World Cup games from ESPN in Brazil by streaming selected Premier League and Champions League fixtures for free on its YouTube channel in Portugal.
When LiveMode started operations in Portugal, industry observers were initially concerned, viewing the entry through the lens of a zero-sum game, explained Thiago Tourinho, partner at LiveMode. However, following the World Cup, the industry realized that creator-led distribution is complementary and actually expands the overall audience pool. Consequently, LiveMode secured a deal with DAZN to broadcast one UEFA Champions League match and one Premier League match per round. This non-exclusive arrangement increases revenue for both DAZN and LiveMode.
DAZN still retains all the matches, Tourinho noted, explaining that because the LiveMode matches are entirely non-exclusive, the overall revenue pool for the sport is successfully increased rather than cannibalized.
Could AI be what immersive sport has been missing?
Five years ago, the metaverse was the dominant buzzword across technology and media conferences, heavily fueled by Facebook’s multi-billion-dollar corporate rebrand as Meta and the fervent enthusiasm of Web 3.0 advocates. The prevailing belief at the time was that society would soon transition into a virtual universe defined by transportable digital identities and virtual assets. Yet despite the commitment of massive financial resources toward building hardware ecosystems, digital environments, and immersive applications, that initial vision has largely failed to materialize in the mainstream sports market.
Despite these past setbacks, proponents of immersive sporting experiences remain firmly convinced that a viable market exists for services capable of bringing fans closer to the action. This optimism is now being revitalized by recent advancements in local processing power, the increasing consumer appeal of more refined hardware devices like smart glasses, and a steady growth in overall consumer demand.
The XR Sports Alliance, an industry body comprising hardware manufacturers, software developers, broadcasters, and rights holders, believes that artificial intelligence (AI) represents the missing catalyst. AI is viewed as the key driver behind a new wave of applications that will finally resonate with everyday consumers, whether they are engaging from home or experiencing the atmosphere live inside the stadium.
For us, AI is really kind of one of the answers that we have for immersive technologies to succeed. It’s one of the reasons now, explained Jose Somolinos, solutions strategist and XR lead at Accedo. Having worked in immersive technologies for 12 years, Somolinos noted that past consumer feedback when pitched virtual reality headsets was overwhelmingly negative.
The perfect user experience for that is going to be the new interface that we’re going to be using, because we are much more comfortable talking with Large Language Models using our natural voice, Somolinos said. The idea that when you will be able to wear these glasses, enter in an event, and have all the information about the map of all the different venues, and they guide you to go there… this is going to help you to enjoy the sport much better.
We see the trends for AI glasses taking off, added Patrick Costello, senior director of business development at Qualcomm. I think just in 2025 alone, Meta shipped over seven million devices. This is colliding now with the availability of agentic AI. At some point—we may not realize it now—we’re all going to have AI agents working for us in the background and available as interfaces on these devices.
Industry experts noted that while the primary constraint for capturing truly immersive first-person sports experiences has historically been the prohibitive cost of specialized cameras, this hardware hurdle is another challenge likely to be solved by falling component costs and deeper AI integration in the near future.
The value of tech in pioneering new formats
The ongoing struggle of track and field athletics to maintain mainstream public relevance during the long stretches between major global championships is well documented. A historically convoluted international calendar and persistent difficulties in getting the sport’s biggest stars to compete regularly against one another have historically impacted both public visibility and meaningful competition.
At the same time, the undeniable success of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, the emergence of a dynamic new wave of digitally native athletes, and the evergreen public appetite for witnessing superhuman feats of athleticism serve as powerful votes of confidence for the future of athletics.
World Athletics’ latest strategic initiative to capitalize on this momentum is the Ultimate Championship, a high-stakes, season-ending invitational event restricted exclusively to defending Olympic champions, reigning world champions, Diamond League winners, and top-ranked global athletes, backed by a substantial US$10 million prize fund. This stringent qualification structure guarantees a high-caliber competitive field and provides immediate narrative significance for television viewers.
A central priority for World Athletics was maximizing the commercial and viewership opportunity of this new format. The governing body achieved this by deploying advanced broadcast technology designed to enhance the visual spectacle across multiple platforms and actively help viewers better understand the athletic performances unfolding before them.
For the first time, World Athletics captured innovative data sets, launched a dedicated mobile application designed to deliver a genuine second-screen experience rather than merely mimicking the official static website, and completely overhauled on-screen graphics. These modern enhancements included novel visual representations, live win prediction models, and a prominent clock positioned directly in the center of the screen rather than tucked away in the traditional corner.
The clock in the center—that was designed to support vertical videos, which typically cut out the corner clock, explained Cristiano Coraglia, senior product and project manager at World Athletics. If there’s a world record, you will not see the time if it’s placed traditionally. Having the clock always at the centre allows you to help people understand the performance immediately.
Coraglia reported that the new format proved to be a resounding success, marked by sold-out sessions, enthusiastic feedback from participating athletes, and strong early interest from international broadcasters looking to secure rights for the next edition in two years. By that time, World Athletics hopes to be even more adept at transforming raw athletic data into compelling narrative insights—tools capable of converting casual sports fans who tune in only once every few years into dedicated, long-term followers of the sport.
Viewers don’t want to see simply a record, a number. They want to understand the story behind it. So our challenge is: how do we surface those stories? Coraglia added. The avid user will be happy no matter what. But if we keep presenting data like we did ten years ago, then we will have the core fans that represent 0.01 per cent of the potential audience, and we will not engage with the broader new fans.
US money is driving growth
The rising valuation of professional sports franchises has been a consistent overarching theme across major industry conferences throughout the year, and Sportel proved to be no exception. In North America, major sports leagues have increasingly moved to approve minority investments from private equity firms, enabling team owners to effectively unlock equity. Combined with skyrocketing media rights valuations, these financial mechanisms are having a profound economic impact across the US sports landscape.
However, this influx of North American capital is not stopping at domestic borders. US private equity investors and wealthy individuals are increasingly eyeing European sports teams, particularly traditional soccer clubs, because the astronomically high cost of acquiring majority ownership stakes in major North American franchises makes such ventures nearly impossible for all but the ultra-wealthy.
The US leagues don’t allow private equity to own a majority… so it’s still very much a wealthy individual game in the US, noted Jeff Roth of Bruin Capital. Because they can’t own a majority in the US, you also then see a lot of US investors, particularly those with backgrounds in NFL and Major League Baseball clubs, looking to own soccer teams on a majority basis… that trend, I think, will continue.
Eighty per cent of the investments we made on the Bruin side have been in businesses outside of the US, even though we’re all located in the US, Roth concluded, highlighting the enduring global appeal and cross-border investment appetite currently defining the modern sports business ecosystem.
