The venture capitalist Meredith McPherron has written a guest column for Sportico in which she predicts a rise in the technological side of the sports industry – especially in electronic media, but also in data as a resource and in women’s sports.
McPherron is the CEO and managing partner of Drive by DraftKings, which invests in entertainment and what it called “SportsTech.” In her view, pandemic restrictions have increased the industry’s reliance on technology, specifically internet-based communications, enabling people to come together virtually in their physical separation.
McPherron begins with the SportsTechX VC Report 2021, according to which sports tech drew $8.3 billion in worldwide investments in the first nine months of last year. They are projected to have jumped to a total of $12.7 billion for the whole of 2021, or more than the previous two years combined. The investment flow appears to have been limited to tech as it relates to traditional sports, to the exclusion of igaming, mobile gaming, e-sports, the metaverse and associated uses of blockchain. The first two of McPherron’s four predictions for 2022, however, deal with these other areas.
“NFTs,” she continues, “were the breakout sports tech trend of 2021, and the metaverse will define 2022,” entering our daily lives “through gaming, glasses and headsets.”
She cites Morgan Stanley as projecting a $8 trillion market for the metaverse across all sectors, if indeed it becomes the “next generation social media, streaming and gaming platform,” and Matthew Ball – CEO of the venture capital firm Epyllion and author of a pertinent essay – as suggesting that the metaverse’s value could reach $30 trillion over the next 15 years. There is demographic argument to this, as McPherron notes: more than half of the users of Roblox – one of the several blockchain-based gaming platforms that now exist, and the one Nike happens to have set up a digital world in – are not yet teenagers.
If the rumors are true and Apple releases its Apple glasses this year, McPherron believes that augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) might at last move from novelties to revenue-generating technologies – especially as an immersive means to access the metaverse.
As for data, “AI and machine learning applications within sports tech and entertainment will elevate gaming, fantasy and sports betting experiences and provide greater utility to health and fitness and an array of fan engagement apps,” McPherson’s report predicts. Data will “help guide our decisions on everything from personal health and wellness to e-commerce, connectivity, play and performance.”
Furthermore, women’s sports are coming into their own, according to McPherron. Viewership was up by 60 percent year-on-year for the 2021 WNBA Finals and by 216 percent year-on-year for the 2019 National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) championship. McPherron points also to a rise in outlets dedicated to women’s sports, such as Just Women’s Sports, HighlightHER and On Her Turf.
Photo: Julien Tromeur, Unsplash
