Entering the Second Half: Insights from Our London Sports Investors Panel

The business of sport is evolving rapidly, driven by new investment models, digital transformation, and shifting fan dynamics. At the second edition of our exclusive London panel, “The Second Half,” industry leaders explored where capital is flowing, what drives long-term value, and how investors can navigate opportunities across infrastructure, data, and emerging sports sectors.

Kinga Forró

Digital Business Analyst

We believe that the most valuable conversations happen where investment logic meets the realities of how an industry is experienced, operated, and scaled. Following the strong momentum of its first edition, “Unlocking Investment Opportunities in the Business of Sport: The Second Half”, co-hosted with Mara, continued our panel series with fresh perspectives and new opportunities. Much like a match entering its second half with renewed energy and strategy.

This invite-only session gathered leading voices from across the sports industry to explore the evolving investment landscape in sport, including infrastructure, multi-club ownership models, emerging leagues, and the role of digital transformation in shaping value creation.

‍
Panellists invited:

Samir Beg Ceric: investor, entrepreneur, and Chairman of Ceric & Co, a family office focused on innovation, sustainability, and long-term value creation in sport
Sasha Ryazantsev: CFO Advisor at ALK Capital, with extensive experience in football club ownership, financing, and strategic growth (including Burnley FC and RCD Espanyol)
Mark Blundell: former Formula 1 driver, entrepreneur, and CEO of MBP, with decades of experience across elite motorsport and sports management
Moderated by our CEO, László Alpár Lukács

Agenda highlights:

The state of sports investments in 2026
Infrastructure and real estate as emerging pillars of the ecosystem
Multi-club and multi-sport ownership as a platform strategy
New sports, leagues, and geographies, driving the next wave of growth
Digital Due Diligence as a framework for evaluating modern sports assets
SPVs enabling broader investor participation in sports deals

‍

Here are some of the key ideas and reflections from the discussion:

Rethinking the Sports Bubble

Are we in a sports investment bubble? Rather than viewing this through hype cycles, it’s more useful to look at it through a capital markets lens. As long as family offices and private equity continue to treat sports as an attractive asset class, capital will keep flowing.

This reframes the conversation entirely. It’s not about whether a bubble exists. It’s about where capital is concentrated and why.

Data: The Most Undervalued Asset in Sports

In sports, data is still unmined gold. Let's take a simple comparison: Real Madrid C.F. has ~450M fans and a ~$6.5B valuation, while Amazon has ~300M customers and is valued at ~$2.1T.

This gap isn’t scale, it’s monetisation. Sports organisations have massive, loyal audiences, but the data behind those relationships remains largely unused.

Scaling Without Infrastructure: Where Opportunity Lives

The biggest opportunities sit in sports that can scale without heavy infrastructure, such as hockey in the UK and handball globally.

What makes them compelling isn’t just growth potential, but efficiency. They don’t require the same level of capital-intensive infrastructure as more established sports, making expansion faster, more flexible, and more attractive from a returns perspective.

The Infrastructure Dilemma

Some sports, especially those that are harder to capture and distribute, like rally, face structural challenges around engagement, largely due to format and accessibility. The issue isn’t just cost, but return on capital. Infrastructure is necessary for growth, yet often difficult to justify financially, which puts pressure on stakeholders to rethink how assets are used.

This is where creative monetisation and multi-use models become essential.

Culture > Capital

Investor thesis alignment is not enough, cultural fit is critical.

Sports assets are not typical businesses. They carry identity, legacy, and emotional meaning that cannot be optimised purely through financial logic. In this space, capital has limits. Recognising and respecting those limits is essential.

The Evolution of Fan Engagement

A particularly interesting note for Formula 1 fans: the way the sport now engages younger audiences would have been unimaginable in previous eras.

This highlights a broader shift. Sports marketing is now adaptive, digital-first, and audience-driven.

Digital Due Diligence: from the Cognitive Creators' Perspective

As organisers, we also shared our perspective on how investment thinking in sports is evolving. In his keynote, Attila Tóth, our Chief Strategist, highlighted the growing importance of Digital Due Diligence in this context.

Traditional due diligence (legal, financial, and commercial) was designed for a physical world, but today it is no longer sufficient on its own. A digital layer has become essential, as many of the key risks and value drivers in sports now sit within technology systems, data flows, and fan-facing platforms. Outdated or inefficient infrastructure can quietly erode both cost and revenue, for example, through failed ticketing transactions that often go unnoticed but directly impact income. At the same time, dormant data remains a major untapped asset, with the potential to unlock new revenue streams, even for smaller clubs, when properly activated.

In this new perspective, understanding the digital layer is where a growing share of both risk and opportunity is concentrated.

What’s Next

Events like this reinforce our mission to create spaces where high-signal conversations can happen. As László put it: The most valuable insights are often the ones you won’t find online.

We’ll continue the Panel series at our next gathering in May: The Extra Round. Register your interest here: https://luma.com/bfu5qv17

Until then, we invite you to stay close and keep exploring.

Register Now

Digital Due diligence

Start your digital journey in the right direction

We’re curious in which car do you see yourself taking this roadtrip. If you need a helping hand figuring out the road to grow, check out our Consultancy services and don’t hesitate contacting us.

Take me there

Digital Due Diligence

Digital Feasibility Audit

Explore the true potential of your digital endeavours

When was the last time you lost sight of a seemingly minor detail that kicked back? While thinking about it, check out how we can help you with uncovering the digital opportunities and risks that were not evident from the start.

Take me there