Why Sport Remains the Safest Bet in an Uncertain World
- Written by James Begley, CEO of Launchd
When Rome was in crisis, its leaders did not retreat to the Senate. They went to the circus. To the chariot races. To the gladiators. Sport was not a distraction. It was the ritual glue that kept the population tethered to a shared identity.
Two thousand years later, that impulse has not changed. In times of uncertainty, people still gather in stadiums, around screens, and in group chats to watch others strive, fail, and overcome. Sport is a mirror of human experience. And in an increasingly synthetic world, its rawness is more valuable than ever.
We are all being swept up in a wave of artificial intelligence. AI is rewriting industries, reprogramming workflows, and recasting what it means to be creative. It is fast. Impressive. Inevitable.
But here is my view. As the artificial becomes more powerful, the real becomes more precious.
Sport is real. It is unpredictable. It is flawed and exhilarating and maddening. It does not follow scripts. It creates them. Every game is a theatre of hope and heartbreak. Every moment is earned.
This is a NO AI post. My imperfect grammar stays in.
As someone who once played professional footy and now leads a business at the intersection of sport, technology and marketing, I see the rising value of human performance everywhere. And I believe we are entering an era where live sport and talent-led storytelling will attract a premium, culturally, commercially and emotionally.
A recent report by Arctos Partners reinforced something I have long believed. Sports franchises do not just survive downturns. They thrive through them. Whether it is the tech crash, the GFC, or the pandemic, franchise valuations have remained resilient. Why? Because sport is not just another product. It is a cultural anchor.
It offers scarcity, locked-in broadcast revenue, loyal fan bases, and increasingly, international reach.
But more importantly, sport offers meaning. It helps people feel something in a world that often feels automated and flat.
As AI expands and synthetic content multiplies, people will crave the opposite. They will crave the unfiltered, the unscripted, the imperfect and unforgettable.
That is sport.
From an investment point of view, we are seeing sport emerge as an asset class with remarkable durability. It performs in recessions. It grows in recoveries. It is backed by passion, not just data.
And it is not just the leagues. It is the ecosystem around them, the talent, the storytellers, the marketers, the content creators. This is the infrastructure that drives influence. And it is where we have placed our focus at Launchd.
We are building a platform that connects brands to talent and audiences in smarter, faster, more measurable ways. Booking talent is easy. Turning that talent into brand impact, commercial return, and authentic storytelling is the hard part. That is what we solve.
While the stadiums are ancient, the way we monetise sport has changed. Brands do not just want exposure. They want effect. They want campaigns that move people, and they want proof that it worked.
Launchd gives them both.
What we are seeing now is that marketers are waking up to a simple truth. In a world saturated with sameness, the things that feel real will stand out. And people, athletes, creators, and entertainers remain the most powerful channel there is.
We call it influence as a service. It blends technology with human capital. And it works.
So yes, we live in a volatile world. Markets will swing. Trends will shift. AI will accelerate. But people will still need stories. They will still need a connection. They will still need to cheer, to mourn, to belong.
Sport gives them that.
And for that reason, it remains the safest bet we have.
James Begley is a former AFL player and the CEO of Launchd, a platform that helps brands drive measurable results through sport and talent
