Legia Sport Business Programme - notes on sports business

In autumn 2023 I started the Legia Sport Business Programme. The lecturers included Dariusz Mioduski, Tomasz Zahorski and Jeremy Cottino, Chief Operating Officer of AS Monaco. From my notes I kept what stayed with me the most.

Sport is a huge business today

According to Forbes (2022), the 25 biggest sports empires were worth 178 billion dollars together, and their value grew by 22% in one year. At the top was Liberty Media, owner of Formula 1 among others - 17.2 billion dollars.

Michael Jordan shows the scale of change best. In 1985 he signed a contract with Nike worth 250,000 dollars a year. Today the partnership earns him around 130 million dollars a year.

What has changed sport in recent years

• Digitalisation - through social media and smartphones, fans have become participants, not just viewers.
• Globalisation - clubs travel the world for new fans and sponsors.
• Players as brands - they build their own media and businesses.
• Multi-club groups - shared resources, scouting and capital.

What's next - data and artificial intelligence

From an analyst's perspective, the most interesting part was the forecast for 2030: scouting and player evaluation increasingly based on data and artificial intelligence. Talent identification, predicting player value, sensor data from matches and training.

It is already happening. There will be more and more data, but someone has to translate it into the coach's language and into training.