Technology for interacting with fans, including live broadcasts and e-sports, will have the greatest impact on sports in the coming years.

The most influential and important technologies in the sports industry in the near future will be technologies to attract fans, such as live broadcasts, e-sports, and content platforms, as well as technologies related to the performance of athletes, such as collecting, processing and efficient use of physical data the condition and effectiveness of athletes. The top three niches for investment: media and content-related platforms; measuring platforms for data, analytics and biometrics; as well as eSports.

“Anticipating the next trend in fan engagement is very important whether you are a team, brand, or media company,” says Tom Masterman, head of sales at Genius Sports Media, a leading provider of sports data and technology solutions. “Tokyo 2020 will be an event that will spur and launch both startups and existing technologies.”

From an investment perspective, the three key areas that really attract attention will apply to media and entertainment networks, e-sports, and data, analytics, and biometrics measurement networks. The enhancement of athlete efficiency technology, field engineering, gambling, and health and home fitness are other important fields. This is convincing evidence that the direction of venture financing has a positive dynamic trend.

Online video is one of the fastest-growing markets, it is expected to account for 82% of all consumer Internet traffic by 2021, with a current market worth of $312 billion (source Cisco sept. 2017). Sports video market is exploding: there has been a 90 percent increase in searches for “football highlight” videos during the past year, YouTube reported in Feb 2018.