Gary Davidson – Group Chief Operating Officer – 54
Roger Mitchell – Founder – Albachiara Group
Rick Shiels – CEO – Rick Shiels Media
Tom Julian – Head of International Cooperation and Public Relations – Bundesliga
International GmbH
Christy Cahill – Chief Brand & Communications Officer – World Lacrosse
The sports industry has moved from the commercial certainties of previous generations to an age of remarkable challenges and possibilities.
In the NFL Locker Room at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, representatives of a diverse group of organisations tackled the question of what sport is selling in 2026 and where its next fans can be found.
Taking up moderating duties, Albachiara Group founder Roger Mitchell described the panel’s topic as “one of the most important facing our industry”. He set its terms as finding a balance between sport’s traditional appeal and the demands of modern audiences.
54 was one of the organisations behind LIV Golf, the Saudi-backed breakaway tour that shook up the sport on its arrival in 2022. For Gary Davidson, the issue facing the game had been that players, promoters and fans depended on one another for success but had competing priorities and incentives. The goal for LIV was to align all of their interests through a reimagined commercial model.
Its mission was complicated by the obligations of the existing tours, though merger talks with the PGA Tour are ongoing. The company has since gone on to develop event properties for padel – a much less-established sport whose governing bodies, Davidson says, have been better placed to respond to new ideas.
Rick Shiels meets golf fans in a very different setting: YouTube. A direct, data-rich relationship with audiences on that platform has yielded plenty of lessons about what viewers want – and what advertisers value. At the same time, the flexibility of content formats allow Shiels to tap into fan interests in different ways that reflect how that came into the sport.
Shiels believes that traditional sports distributors, by contrast, are “not thinking outside the box enough” in terms of how to reach prospective audiences. German football’s Bundesliga may be an exception to that charge. In the past year, the league has begun to experiment radically with its international rights distribution – collaborating with creators like Mark Goldbridge and digital-first programming like Gary Neville’s The Overlap, as well as working with more traditional partners like the BBC.
“For us, the models are there,” said Tom Julian, pointing to other sports and emerging properties like the small-sided, creator-infused Baller League. In Brazil, he added, the Bundesliga has signed media rights deals with seven different companies across a range of distribution channels – including live-streaming platform CazéTV.
“We’ve made it super-easy to watch,” he said, “and we’ve made it so people can watch how they want to.”
Financially, Julian admits, there is scope in these markets to trial unusual models – but the league is seeing real commercial growth.
Lacrosse will return to the Olympics Games for the first time in 120 years at LA 2028 and for World Lacrosse’s Christy Cahill, that is an opportunity the sport must be ready to maximise. In that context, she said, it is vital for the governing body to work with commercial actors like Premier League Lacrosse to lift prospects across the board.
In North America, where lacrosse is played in many high schools and colleges, the process will begin with a data outreach project to reconnect with a sizeable casual and lapsed player base. That will lead into a renewed set of sponsorship conversations that sell partners on the appeal of a youthful, aspirational community.
In an period of such commercial upheaval, Cahill said, sports like lacrosse face both the difficulty of a lower income base and the flexibility of lower financial stakes. Bridging the gap to new models while risking larger existing revenue streams may be a different proposition.
Similarly, organisations moving into different media spaces must adapt to another set of conventions and offer trust to unfamiliar partners. Julian reflected on early conversations with Mark Goldbridge – a critic of the Bundesliga in the past – in which they worked through their expectations for the partnership. Together, they developed a strategy where the creator would guide his audience on a journey of discovery
about the league.
The Bundesliga, Julian added, is also working from strong financial foundations. All of the top-division clubs were profitable in the last fiscal year, along with 14 of the 18 second-tier sides. That alleviates some of the pressure on sourcing relentless financial growth – though he accepted the rest of the game may not be on the same footing.
For Davidson, the future success of sport will depend on picking the right partners. Disruption to the industry’s core models may be a source of uncertainty but general interest is growing.
Through a commitment to the right vision, new approaches could produce their own enduring results.