Before You Lock Your 2027 Growth Plan, Read This
3 Min Read
Before You Lock Your 2027 Growth Plan, Read This
Your next customer may not exist yet, your product may be too small, and the market you plan to sell into may be the wrong one.
The world’s 50 most valuable sports teams are now worth approximately $353 billion combined, more than double their value only four years ago.
NFL related YouTube uploads are up more than 400% since 2020, while views have increased more than 250%.
Women’s elite sports revenue is expected to reach around $3 billion in 2026, roughly 340% above 2022 levels.
US sports betting generated almost $17 billion in revenue last year.
These are not separate trends.
They are evidence that the sports economy is being rebuilt in real time.
At HYPE SPORTS, our preliminary estimate suggests that the economic surface surrounding an engaged sports fan may have expanded roughly 2.7 times in five years.
The fan did not become 2.7 times more passionate.
The economy built around that passion did.
And if that is true, one uncomfortable conclusion follows:
Your 2027 TAM may already be wrong.
For growth companies, that should force a rethink of three things: who the customer is, how large the product can become, and whether you should keep renting demand from somebody else.
1. What if your next customer does not exist yet?
Most growth plans are built around customers we already understand.
Clubs. Leagues. Federations. Broadcasters. Brands.
But new businesses are forming around sport: creator led leagues, athlete media companies, paid fan communities, personalized channels, AI powered fan businesses and new commerce models.
For a company like Chargebee, the opportunity may no longer be only helping clubs manage subscriptions.
It could become infrastructure for hundreds of new recurring revenue businesses built around memberships, creators and digital fan experiences.
The strategic shift is simple:
Your TAM may expand because new customers are being created, not only because existing customers spend more.
Take it to the boardroom
Identify three customer categories that barely exist today.
Pick one where you could become infrastructure, not another vendor.
Then validate it with 10 real market conversations.
Which customer category could become meaningful by 2028 that is barely visible today?
2. What if your product is too small?
Most technology companies still define themselves by what they sell:
Payments. Personalization. Customer service. CRM. Analytics.
AI may make those definitions too narrow.
The next move may not be making the product 20% better.
It may be absorbing an entire business process.
A personalization company might move from deciding which offer to show a fan to identifying the audience, creating the offer, localizing it, pricing it and managing the next interaction.
That is no longer a tool.
That is a commercial operation.
The progression becomes:
Feature → Workflow → Function → Business outcome
And if you own more of the work, you may own more of the economics.
Take it to the boardroom
Map what happens before and after your product.
Ask which adjacent workflows AI could allow you to absorb.
Then choose one expanded product bet for 2027.
What complete business outcome could we own by 2028?
3. What if you stopped renting demand?
Most growth companies still rent demand through sales, paid acquisition, events, partnerships and outbound.
Companies with scale should ask a different question:
What can we own that makes the market come to us?
A community.
A benchmark.
A dataset.
A marketplace.
A sports property.
Imagine an AI company creating the benchmark every major sports organization uses to evaluate fan service.
It is no longer only selling into the market.
It is shaping the market.
Take it to the boardroom
Take part of the 2027 growth budget and ask:
What asset could we build, buy or co own that could still be generating customers for us five years from now?
Your category may be the real problem.
Final thoughts
Put the three shifts together:
New customers are being created.
Products are expanding into business outcomes.
Companies can start owning demand.
Then one uncomfortable question appears:
If we started this company again in 2027, would we define what business we are in the same way?
A payments company may become commerce infrastructure.
A customer service company may become an autonomous operations platform.
A data company may become a decision engine.
Categories that helped define companies in 2023 may constrain them in 2027.
The 90 Day Growth Reset
Days 1 to 30: Identify one emerging customer category.
Days 31 to 60: Design one larger business outcome you could own.
Days 61 to 90: Choose one demand generating asset to build, buy or co own.
Then take three decisions back to the board:
Which new customer category do we want to be early in?
Which complete business outcome do we want to own?
Which demand generating asset do we want to control?
These are not AI questions.
They are growth questions.
2027 may reward the companies that redefine their market before the market redefines them.
The biggest risk may not be moving too slowly.
It may be executing brilliantly inside a market definition that is already becoming obsolete.
If the customer is changing, the product is expanding and the market itself can now be shaped, what exactly is your 2027 growth plan built around?
With the Love for Sports and Innovation,
AR
CEO, HYPE Sports Innovation
P.S.
On October 6th, I’m opening up the playbook on How to Turn Sports Brands Into Paying Customers. A practical playbook for building a lead engine and closing multiple deals with clubs, leagues and global sports brands. Join me here.
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