$6.8T Wellness, $1.2B Data Deals, and the New Sports Stack

Good morning, ! This week we’re digging into fitness tech’s move from lifestyle to performance infrastructure, athletes building story-first media companies, mobile esports going mainstream, Genius Sports’ $1.2B push to own the full data-to-betting stack, and why sports remain appointment viewing—even as attention fragments.

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DATA DIVE

Fitness Tech Becomes the Performance Layer of Sports

The global wellness economy hit $6.8T in 2024, compounding at 6.5% CAGR since 2013 and now representing 6.1% of global GDP. For sports investors, the critical signal is not size, but adjacency. Physical activity, already a $1.14T category, is increasingly the demand engine feeding sports performance, recovery, and data infrastructure .

The investable edge is fitness tech and wellness, which is migrating from consumer lifestyle into the performance stack. Smart fitness is projected to scale from $71.9B (2025) to $186.1B (2034) at ~11% CAGR, while online and virtual fitness expands from $38.4B to $138.7B by 2030, a ~29% CAGR. This is no longer about at-home workouts. It is about measurement, personalization, and outcomes, the same primitives that elite sports already underwrite.

For teams, leagues, and performance platforms, the implication is structural. Wearables, AI coaching, and hybrid training models are becoming the connective tissue between consumer fitness spend and sports performance economics, unlocking B2B revenue via corporate wellness, injury prevention, and data-linked partnerships.

Why it matters now: capital is shifting toward platforms that own the data layer, not just the venue or the athlete. In sports, that is where durability, pricing power, and M&A premiums are increasingly accruing.

Read the Full Report HERE

MEDIA & SPORTS

Still Appointment Viewing?

For more than a decade, live sports have been the last true appointment viewing asset, propping up the linear TV bundle and justifying ever-higher media rights fees. The results speak loudly. From 2010 to 2017, North American sports media rights grew 11% annually, doubling from $8.2B to $16.8B. Growth has slowed, but not collapsed. From 2017 to 2025, rights values still compound at roughly 8%, reaching an estimated $30.9B.

But the bundle is fracturing. Streaming platforms now sit alongside broadcasters, while younger fans consume sports via highlights, social clips, betting, and second screens. Attention is fragmented, even if engagement isn’t.

The implication: premium pricing remains—but only for leagues that deliver must-have scale. Sports are still appointment viewing. The appointment just no longer lasts three hours. (More)

INVESTOR CORNER

Genius Sports buys Legend to close the loop on data, media, and betting demand

Genius Sports’ $1.2B acquisition of Legend is less about scale and more about control. Genius already owned the supply side with official league data. Legend adds the demand engine with 320M annual visits and 118M unique users who arrive with high betting intent.

The structure matters. $900M paid upfront, including $800M cash and $100M stock, plus a $300M earnout, signals confidence in near term monetization rather than distant synergy promises. Management immediately lifted guidance, targeting $1.1B revenue and $320M to $330M adjusted EBITDA in 2026, up from $669M revenue and $136M EBITDA in FY25.

For investors, the bet is vertical integration. Genius now touches data creation, fan engagement, ad inventory, and wagering conversion inside one stack. That should compress customer acquisition costs for sportsbooks and push Genius toward higher margin media revenue rather than pure data licensing.

The risk is execution. Media scale is volatile, and betting demand is cyclical. But strategically, this deal positions Genius as infrastructure, not a vendor. In a consolidating sports betting economy, owning both signal and audience is a durable advantage. (More)

ENTREPRENEURS

Athlete-Led, Story-First, Investor-Ready

Naomi Osaka’s HANA KUMA isn’t chasing clicks—it’s chasing a narrative void. The Emmy-nominated media company, co-founded with Stuart Duguid, is flipping the script on how athletes—especially women—are portrayed in sports media.

By partnering with REVOLT Sports, it produces content that treats athletes not as headlines, but as entrepreneurs, cultural leaders, and storytellers. This isn’t fluff: it’s positioning HANA KUMA at the intersection of sport, identity, and influence, making it a magnet for partners seeking cultural relevance and audience depth.

Zoom out: While Osaka’s own portfolio—CAVA, Bobbie, $55M+ in endorsements—is separate, it fortifies the brand's thesis: the future of sports storytelling isn’t stats and scores. It’s vision and voice. (More)

TECH & INFRASTRUCTURE

AI Moves From Feature to Operating Layer

Sports technology is crossing a structural threshold. AI is no longer a point solution. It is becoming an operating layer across competitive, commercial, and officiating infrastructure.

At the program and league level, AI adoption is pragmatic. Tools that compress recruiting analysis, transfer evaluation, and internal reporting are shortening decision cycles and lowering labor intensity. The economic impact is not wins and losses. It is margin. Fewer staff hours, faster context synthesis, and better capital allocation inside athletic departments and front offices.

On the field, officiating tech is converging around augmentation, not automation. Systems like Sony Hawk-Eye reduce review times by roughly 40 seconds per decision while preserving human authority. Major League Baseball adopting automated strike challenges follows the same logic. Accuracy improves without undermining legitimacy.

The real infrastructure shift is skeletal tracking. With up to 29 body points captured at 100 frames per second, leagues such as FIFA and UEFA are standardizing data dense decision systems. This creates new monetizable layers for broadcast, betting, and immersive media.

Why it matters. AI is embedding itself where switching costs are highest. That is infrastructure, not experimentation. (More)

eSPORTS

Mobile Esports Grows Up

Mobile esports is no longer the scrappy side project of competitive gaming. It’s becoming the main event. With Mobile Legends: Bang Bang set as a medal sport at the 2026 Asian Games, mobile titles have officially crossed into the global sports ecosystem. That legitimacy is translating into record viewership, rising brand investment, and deeper ties with traditional sports bodies.

Behind the surge is distribution, not just gameplay. Platforms like TikTok Live are funneling casual viewers straight into live matches, helping mobile titles outperform legacy PC esports in reach. Add in the rise of nation-based tournaments—from the Esports Nations Cup to regional government-backed formats—and you get something esports has long lacked: emotional stakes at scale.

The bottom line: mobile esports isn’t just growing faster. It’s building the kind of mass-market infrastructure that turns fandom into habit. (More)

PUBLISHER PODCAST

No Off Button: He Built North America's Largest AI Conference (& Had A Winning Exit)

Champions don’t quit when the plan breaks—they adapt. No Off Button is Aram’s publisher-led podcast honoring founders, executives, and creators who don’t have an off switch. Each episode spotlights operators who keep building through pivots, pressure, and imperfect conditions.

This week’s guest is Michael Weiss, co-founder of Ai4, the largest AI conference in North America. Michael walks through the pivot that changed everything—from an ambitious attempt to revive the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair to identifying AI as the defining opportunity of the decade before the boom. The conversation unpacks the realities of the event business, the discipline behind timing a market, and why surviving the compounding phase matters more than chasing early wins.

Why it matters: this episode is a blueprint for founders and investors alike—niche selection, execution, and resilience are what turn failed ideas into category-defining outcomes.

Watch the Episode

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