Since 2016, the PwC Sports Survey has been monitoring the annual pulse of the sports industry by analyzing leaders’ perceptions of past and future market growth. For the first time, this year’s edition addresses the key market forces deemed to transform the sports sector over the next three to five years. They’ve complemented the analysis by assessing the prevailing sentiments among sports executives around these key trends – from transforming media landscape to sports’ growing societal role – covered in more detail in the subsequent chapters.

The State of the Sports Industry

“Sports organizations must frontally embrace societal challenges, using their influential platform not only to promote human well-being and environmental protection, but more concretely, play an active role in developing a stronger society.”

David Dellea, Head of PwC Sports Business Advisory

Just as the last ten years have laid the foundations for profound innovation in the sector, the next ten will be truly transformative. Continuing to mature and deliver new use cases every day, emerging technologies are already on the verge of creating a new global and integrated ecosystem for the sports industry, where the degree of connectedness, automation and convergence is being propelled to unprecedented levels. Several solutions under development foreshadow a radically immersive home viewing experience – where it is possible to watch a penalty kick from the viewpoint of the goalkeeper or the player. 

The vision of a genuine smart stadium will be fully realized, with, for instance, the creation of autonomous shuttles optimizing crowd management in real-time. Other prospects include the rise of the Metaverse: a virtual shared world at the crossroads of video games and social media. These new spaces of expression are bound to offer multiple opportunities for fans to develop their digital identity in relation to their peers, taking part in watch parties, sports betting, and trading blockchain-based virtual goods, among other experiences. 

This is just a glimpse of how the next decade could drastically reshape sports, with a wide range of positive shake-ups – impacting on participation, consumption and administration – set to occur. Supported by a growing sports tech market to which HYPE Sports Innovation is proud to offer decisive support, our industry has the right to dream big and bold, to renew itself and, in the digital age, to continue to inspire the world as it has always done.

Amir Raveh, Founder & President of HYPE Sports Innovation.