Future of Work in Sport – Strategic Intelligence

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Published: March 10, 2025 Report Code: GDSPO-TR-S055-TH

Report Overview
Key Players
Table of Contents

Future of work technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, drones, digital twins, the Internet of Things (IoT), 5G, and 3D printing have the potential to transform the sport industry. They can tackle critical industry challenges, including maintaining fan engagement, ensuring player health and safety, maintaining accurate and efficient decision making processes and the keeping the efficiency and profitability of stadium operations.

The sport industry’s reticence will impede innovation
While the majority of the sports industry’s value chain should invest in or explore many technologies within the future of work framework, the industry’s historical reticence to adopt new technologies will likely impact its success in this theme. In the past, the sports industry has waited to judge the success of technologies within other industries before adopting them itself. Sports companies’ investment in the metaverse and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in 2022 saw them lose out financially, leading to greater restraint when it comes to innovation. While the future of work technologies could revolutionize many areas of the sports industry, most notably fan engagement and player health and safety, large investments may only be seen in the longer term.
Visualization could revolutionize player health and safety
Certain sports, such as American football, soccer, and rugby, put athletes at risk of long-term neurogenerative disorders, with research from Boston University revealing that 345 out of 376 ex-NFL players studied had chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). Sports federations are under fire as they face lawsuits from ex-professionals related to brain injuries. By adopting visualization tools, coaches and players can have a greater hold over the health and safety of their players and be better informed about their potential risks and injuries. Technologies like augmented reality (AR) can help medical staff monitor players’ health metrics in real-time during training sessions and matches, while digital twins can simulate game scenarios and player conditions to predict and prevent injuries. Connectivity will be at the heart of stadiums in the future Current stadiums face challenges in generating consistent revenue and competing with newer venues. Connectivity, specifically 5G, will provide the low latency and high bandwidth needed for artificial intelligence (AI), AR, Internet of Things (IoT), and robotics-enhanced venues that can increase revenue through higher fan engagement and satisfaction. Frictionless entry could become the norm, alongside AI-powered real-time sports betting, AI payments, service robots, and enhanced digital signage.

This report presents GlobalData’s proprietary future of work framework, built around five transformative technology categories: automation, visualization, interpretation, collaboration, and connectivity.

Scope

This report offers a comprehensive analysis of the future of work in the sport industry including:

> How future of work technologies will solve key sport industry challenges

> Which future of work technologies companies across the sport industry value chain should invest in, explore, and ignore

> Leading adopters and specialist vendors of future of work technologies in the sport industry

> Case studies

> M&A and hiring trends

> A thematic scorecard ranking major sport companies in the future of work theme

Key Highlights

Connectivity, through the Industrial Internet and 5G (and 6G from the 2030s), will transform the stadiums of the future. The low latency and high bandwidth of 5G will allow for AI, AR, IoT and robotics-enhanced venues that could see frictionless entry becoming the norm, alongside AI-powered real-time sports betting, AI payments, service robots, and enhanced digital signage.

Visualisation is key to revolutionizing player and health and safety, with technologies like AR helping medical staff monitor players’ health metrics in real-time, and digital twins simulating game scenaros and player conditions to predict and prevent injuries.

Visualisation will be important in helping maintain fan engagement. AR graphics, including real-time statistics overlaid on screen, can create a more informative and enjoyable viewing experience. Combining AI with AR will allow for customizable, real-time betting odds to be overlaid on screen as well, with AR alone enabling micro-betting. VR may also see sports federations increasing fan engagement, as sports companies experiment with broadcasts using VR headsets.

Reasons to Buy

GlobalData’s strategic intelligence ecosystem is a single, integrated global research platform that provides an easy-to-use framework for tracking all themes across all companies in all sectors.

This report is essential reading for senior executives to understand how the sport industry will be transformed by future of work technologies, ensuring your company does not get left behind.

3D Systems (DDD)
ABB
AELTC
Ai.io
Alibaba
Alphabet (Waymo)
Amazon
Apple
Around
AT&T
ATP Tour
Autodesk
Automation Anywhere
Baidu
Boston Red Sox
BT Sports
Catapult
CBS Sports
Chelsea FC
Chyron
Cisco (Webex)
Cleveland Browns
Cloudera
Collibrium Additive HP
Dallas Cowboys
Dassault Systemes
DFL
Disguise
DJI
DPVR
Ericsson
ESPN
F1
FANUC
FIBA
Fox Sports
Genius Sports
GM (Cruise)
Hawk-Eye
HTC
Huawei
IBM
Immersal
INDE
IOC
Kawasaki
LA Chargers
Liverpool FC
Manchester City Football Club
MeetKai
Megvil (FACE++)
Merge Labs
Meta
Microsoft
Midea
Midjourney
NBA
NFL
NICE
Nvidia
OpenAI
Oracle
Orlando Magic
Parrot
PGA Tour
Portland Trail Blazers
Qualcomm
Rokid
Salesforce
Sap
Saumsung Electronics
Schneider Electric
ShotTracker
Sky Sports
Sony
Sport Radar
StatsPerform
Terdyne
Tesla
The Masters Tournament
Twenty First Group
UiPath
Vuzix
WaitTime
Wicket
WWE
Xiaomi
Yuneec
Zoom

Executive Summary

Players

GlobalData’s Future of Work Framework

The Impact of the Future of Work on Sport

Case Studies

The Future of Work Timeline

Signals

Companies

Sector Scorecard

Glossary

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Future of Work in Sport – Strategic Intelligence

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