Are businesses

even asking the

right AI questions?

Dan Gardner

Dan Gardner

Co-Founder and Exec Chair, Code and Theory
Co-Founder, ON_Discourse

This article is part of The Intelligently Artificial Issue, which combines two big stories in consumer tech: AI and CES.

Read more from the issue:

For real customer insights, ask fake people

Should we ignore the hardware?

The AI landscape is changing quickly. So quickly that as soon as we think we’re starting to understand its power, there seems to be another giant leap forward. It doesn’t help that we are surrounded by fake AI experts who claim to have all the answers.

Truthfully, given all the unknowns, there are more questions than answers today. Each question has a cascading impact on other questions and seems to only bring a series of new questions. The answers right now are only guesses, predictions at best based on hopefully thoughtful reasoning, meant to provide a productive discourse that drives perspectives and decision-making. Any verifiable answers will only reveal themselves tomorrow.

From the editor: The takes below are based on a projection toward the end of the 2020s and are intentionally opinionated and incomplete. We aim to go deeper on each question in future content and at future events, including via ON_CES.

01

What is the future of

SaaS and BI

tools?

Today, businesses use siloed
tech with a questionable data
strategy.

Tomorrow, the SaaS
ecosystem will consolidate
into very few companies.

Companies of all sizes currently rely on a fragmented ecosystem of technologies. BI tools are siloed not due to the tech itself, but due to a lack of data strategy and organizational structure. People own different elements of the chain (separate teams own social, the web, and so on). This has given discreet software companies the opportunity to solve specific use cases. 

The global SaaS market is projected to grow from $273.55 billion in 2023 to $908.21 billion by 2030. In the past decade, marketing software alone has grown from 150 tools in 2011 to 11,038 tools in 2023. There is a high likelihood that the ecosystem could consolidate, eliminating the opportunity and the role of discrete software systems.

One of the core advantages of AI is its unique ability to assess, simplify, and make sense of large amounts of information. By making sense of data, AI can communicate more easily and effectively given the simplified semantic interfaces, a previous pain point for large consolidated systems.

Since the advent of ChatGPT, we’ve seen a gold rush of companies using LLMs to change the way we process, communicate, and execute decisions. This technology is evolving so quickly that we could see it swallow the companies being built upon it. This should lead to fewer, but better, SaaS and BI tools, bringing up other questions about how companies differentiate themselves and the role of humans.

Agree
Disagree

02

How do we make

AI safe for

businesses

to use?

Today, businesses are worried
about protecting their IP and
potential copyright lawsuits,
moral issues, and reputational
problems.

Tomorrow, businesses will
rely on new legal and procedural precedents to use
AI tools liberally.

There is legal precedent, there is enforcement, and there is public opinion.

Firstly, legal precedent (including regulation and policy) will naturally unfold and become clearer. One can make some guesses and predictions here, but ultimately, for competition to thrive, the laws will have to allow for some liberal use of the technologies. This can and will be argued, but it’s a fool’s game to think you can regulate away technological progress.

Secondly, as legal precedents are set, challenges will surface around identification and consequences for any wrongdoing. These will need to be policed at some level and possibly even enforced by code. Could smart contracts on the blockchain protect and enforce IP rights? Additionally, industry collectives like the RIAA, which in the early 2000s protected music IP, may form to make examples of companies and individuals breaching legal boundaries. Alternatively, AI tool use could become so common that courts won’t even consider lawsuits regarding copyright, trademarks, and reputation (although this is hard to imagine).

Lastly, public opinion could shape business use cases. Is there a risk of bias? Does a brand face risks when it represents something inaccurately or inappropriately using AI that it didn’t control? It’s hard enough to manage scaled public relations in a world where an executive is one tweet away from being fired or losing trillions in market value. We are entering a world in which ephemeral content is generated in seconds. Brands may struggle to keep up. Organizations will need to manage AI health just like they do cybersecurity.

Agree
Disagree

03

How do we make

AI safe for

people?

Today, businesses own
people’s personal data.

Tomorrow, businesses will offer
identity protection
technology.

Regular audits of public companies not only verify the accuracy and legality of their financial records but also assess whether an organization has adequate controls and processes in place to mitigate potential liabilities. Future regulations may require audits on AI tools to make sure companies are operating legally, including via people controls and by reviewing code.

The government or businesses may also offer trust systems that let people authenticate their identities to interact as themselves with public and private sector services.

Alternatively, people may try to circumvent any potential censorship or gating by masking their identities.

Agree
Disagree

04

Is your

competitive

landscape

being

disrupted?

Today, businesses try to
understand their direct
competitors.

Tomorrow, businesses will be
able to analyze their indirect
competitors and existential
threats.

AI-powered analysis tools could soon ingest data about every market globally and make connections between businesses, causing entire industries to disappear. Businesses could leverage AI to be predictive and anticipatory, uncovering opportunities that disrupt categories they never considered entering. Super apps that can do everything are a real threat.

Alternatively, categorical disruption may not happen because businesses will train AI tools on proprietary data to maintain their competitive advantage. The role of a brand will thus still matter because companies that are more focused on designing a specific user experience will be able to continue to differentiate themselves by providing unique value, while non-focused competitors won’t.

Agree
Disagree

05

What is the future of

customer

experience

interfaces?

Today, businesses rely on traditional personalized targeting, information architecture, and rigid user flows.

Tomorrow, businesses will rely on anticipatory semantic and potential ephemeral experiences to target behaviors.

Is the interface that consists of a simple prompt text box with a response field here to stay? Or, will interfaces across various devices foresee what humans want, need, and desire, showing only the information that is relevant to users, when and where it’s required? Instead of you prompting the interface, maybe the interface will prompt you.

AI models may be able to help companies better understand their customers, viewing each one as a whole person and generating for them a more efficient, frictionless, and possibly ephemeral, experience in real time. This could include entertainment, marketing generated to pique interest, and interface elements like CTAs and drop-downs built in real time.

Alternatively, humans may not want generated content or experiences and will opt for more directed, but still personalized, user experiences.

Agree
Disagree

06

What is the future of

branding?

Today, businesses build brand
identities based on static
logos and brand books.

Tomorrow, businesses will
build brands whose attributes
can be generated on the fly
based on an identity that more
closely resembles a human.

Brands in the future will have to act in real time. AI will be on the front lines across touchpoints, communicating dynamically with customers. The way a brand communicates at those digital moments will largely represent the whole brand.

It’s also conceivable that ad units will evolve into more dynamic product placements or other unique constructs as the world pivots to where audiences are engaging. The interactions will seemingly be more human and therefore branding will need to be more lifelike, built into a framework that can make its own decisions.

Conversely, brands could lose meaning because every business can just mirror back to people what they want, in real time.

Agree
Disagree

07

Does

authenticity

matter?

Today, a brand brings
authenticity.

Tomorrow, ownership will be
more important than
authenticity.

Companies are grappling with when and how to be transparent about their use of AI tools. As AI becomes the baseline, companies that own everything they do will stand out. They may be able to build authenticity by unapologetically using AI to offer their customers what they need and want.

The key attribute will be ownership. Whether a piece of content is a deepfake won’t matter if you own the rights to use a given name, image, or likeness. How you create the content won’t be controversial. Ownership will be a core defining factor of both uniqueness and differentiation for a brand.

One could argue that a brand will be even more valuable in the future as a lot of the market consolidates and aggregators become makers. That said, ownership and uniqueness may become harder to achieve, and unique rights might become more expensive.

Agree
Disagree

08

Should a business

invest quickly

or slowly

in AI?

Today, businesses either
invest too slowly and leave
themselves open to
disruption or too quickly and
spend wasted capital.

Tomorrow, the landscape will
be defined by where the
opportunity and need for
investment is.

Businesses recognize the importance of AI but often overspend due to a fear of falling behind. Despite the influx of ever-improving tools, there’s a noticeable redundancy in these so-called “innovative” ideas, hinting at future industry consolidation. On the flip side, inaction poses its own dangers, potentially leading to business stagnation and loss of a competitive edge.

Businesses should do two things immediately: build and invest in a data strategy and create a culture of safe experimentation with AI tools. The barrier to entry is surprisingly low.

Agree
Disagree

09

What will

define

creativity

in the

future?

Today, businesses define
creativity as a skill.

Tomorrow, businesses will
define creativity only in the
way humans think,
not what humans can do.

The advent of generative AI could fundamentally transform how we value skills, pivoting from the traditional execution of skills to an emphasis on analytical and creative thinking. The necessity for manual skills in drawing, writing, or designing may diminish, as generative AI democratizes these abilities.

Furthermore, the reliance on human intuition for decision-making could shift toward AI-driven insights and analyses, processed rapidly and impartially. This change might render prompt engineers obsolete, as AI chatbots take on the burden of generating complex prompts.

This shift could lead to a scenario where digital content and experiences are ephemeral, created spontaneously by AI, potentially reducing the significance of human creativity in producing “things." Creativity might then be seen as a common resource, easily replicable and valued less.

Conversely, the future of business creativity might lie in the ability to innovate without relying on data or existing knowledge. Human distinctiveness could emerge through the generation of novel ideas, fueled by uniquely human emotions, such as passion and envy. In this scenario, genuine creativity could become rarer, yet significantly more treasured.

Agree
Disagree

Final

Thoughts

AI is going to shuffle the deck of what companies do and provide, changing the competitive landscape and ultimately the workforce. Some changes will be obvious, like new forms of creative workforces, but others won’t be, like new types of departments, roles, and C-level officers around ethics, identity, and customer safety.

Do you disagree or have a completely different perspective?
We'd love to know.

Learn About
ON_CES

Learn About
THE Issue

For

real

customer

insights,

Matt Chmiel

Head of Discourse

ask fake

people

This article is part of The Intelligently Artificial Issue, which combines two big stories in consumer tech: AI and CES.

Read more from the issue:

Are businesses even asking the right AI questions?

Should we ignore the hardware?

From the editor: Before the launch of the Intelligently Artificial Issue, we invited Peter Smart, the global CXO of Fantasy, to give a demo of a new AI-powered audience research tool the company calls Synthetic Humans. This article is a distillation of the discourse from that event.  

Digital product design does not happen in a vacuum. Designers, product owners, marketing teams, and business stakeholders all have extensive conversations with customers before, during, and after designs are ultimately shipped. This process is timely and expensive and it feeds a thriving user research industry; consumer brands pay a premium for access to real people from target audience segments to record reactions and develop concepts. The vendors and design teams then plot that feedback into thousands of slide deck pages across the land. The testers get paid, the vendor gets paid, the design staff gets approval, and the designs ultimately ship.

Here’s the thing about all of this testing: what if it’s fake? What if real people are the problem?

Real people are too human to be reliable. They lie, they cut corners, and their attention wanes. They’re in it for the money, which obscures their true opinions as they are not invested in the experience. They resist change with red-hot passion before they embrace and ultimately celebrate it. They are not useful testers.

The proliferation of user research as a design process is responsible for standardized and conventional design practices online. It is hard to produce a differentiated design when we try to meet people where they say they are.

Put bluntly, real people are a waste of time and money.

Can AI fix this?

Fantasy believes that the solution to this human problem of qualitative testing is to use AI to develop a new, scalable audience research ecosystem built on synthetic humans.

A synthetic human is a digital representation of a human being, built using an LLM that converts a massive amount of real survey data into a realistic representation of a human being. Think of it as a digital shell of a human cobbled together using thousands of psychographics data points.

Prompting a synthetic human should give you a realistic response. As a result, if you train a synthetic human to deliver feedback and reactions to developing ideas, you should get actionable audience data. These modern-day AI-generated avatars are much more powerful than a chatbot because they generate and sustain their own memories.

We are not talking about Alexa or Siri here. A synthetic human initiated with a preliminary dataset (age, demographics, location, income, job, and so on) can determine, without any other prompt, that “she” has two daughters, aged 5 and 3. These daughters have names and go to a certain school. Their teachers have names and each daughter has a favorite subject or cuddle toy.

If you don’t interact with this synthetic human for six months and then prompt “her” again, these daughters would still be in “her” mind, as would the teachers and the school. In the intervening time, the children might have celebrated a birthday, or entered the next grade, all aspects that get folded into the profile and leveraged for realistic responses. As a result, “her” opinions about your developing ideas can feel more reliable.

Organizations can train these humans to react to developing concepts, or brainstorm new concepts outright. They can also leverage their generative memory capabilities to help organizations overcome embedded workflow obstacles, like stubborn stakeholders.

Let’s say an organization knows that “Bob” in audience development has a reputation for capricious feedback that often causes a production bottleneck. The organization can train a synthetic human to brainstorm ways to overcome Bob’s reputation.

Here’s another example. Imagine prompting two contradictory synthetic humans (one is aggressive and the other is conservative) to collectively brainstorm an idea over the weekend so that you can arrive on Monday to a fresh batch of thinking. These two personalities are not just coming up with ideas; they are reacting to each other’s ideas, giving feedback, rejecting suggestions, and building on top of promising sparks.

What’s the catch?

There is always a catch. And at ON_Discourse, we lean into the questions that hide underneath the inspiring claims of innovative technology. There is no denying the potential of synthetic humans. It is a direct response to the biggest issues that plague the audience research industry today. Synthetic humans can stay focused, can offer candid feedback, and can be scaled to deliver deeper insights at a lower cost. These are good things. But there are gaps in the capabilities of these tools. Our virtual discourse on November 30 unpacked some of them and thus the limitations of synthetic humans for audience research.

Synthetic humans cannot predict the future. They are locked in the snow globe of their initial configuration. Their generated memories cannot incorporate the development of novel technology or cultural revolutions. As a result, we should not expect this kind of tool to unlock perspectives for new developments. This is notable, given that we are living in an era of rapid, unpredictable change. What humans think about specific disruptions will have to come from other sources.

Synthetic humans do not access deeply human emotional states. They do not grieve. They do not get irate. They do not get horny or goofy, and they do not long after something that is just out of reach. These powerful emotions provide the source material for some of our most inspiring technical and creative accomplishments. Our guests provoked this concept with real-world examples of powerful emotional moments. There are limits to what we can expect an avatar to create – we cannot prompt a bot to dig deeper. Synthetic humans are calibrated to maintain a level set of emotions.

The issues we explored regarding synthetic humans speak more to the role of audience research than to the capabilities of this tool. The collated test results that are plotted on slide decks represent an unintentional hand-off of creative thinking to the masses. Forward thinking organizations are going to recognize the value of synthetic research for solving the achievable problems they face in design and product development. And they will leave the big thinking to the people that still run their business with their head, heart, and with their real human teams.

Do you disagree or have a completely different perspective?
We'd love to know.

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The Issue

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About ON_CES

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Attending

  • Hosted in partnership with Stagwell, ON_CES is taking the discourse straight to the convention floor.
  • We’re going to dedicate our unique process to unpacking and distilling the bold exhibition claims that make this the world’s biggest consumer technology convention.
  • A central theme of this issue will be the promise and implications of AI in consumer tech. What do the products on display represent for short- and long-term consumer trends? How do we distinguish between artificial hype and intelligent opportunities?

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ABOUT THE ISSUE

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  • Hosted in partnership with Stagwell, ON_CES is taking the discourse straight to the convention floor.
  • We’re going to dedicate our unique process to unpacking and distilling the bold exhibition claims that make this the world’s biggest consumer technology convention.
  • A central theme of this issue will be the promise and implications of AI in consumer tech. What do the products on display represent for short and long term consumer trends? How do we distinguish between artificial hype and intelligent opportunities?
  • ON_CES will include the launch of The Intelligently Artificial Issue, which will provide deep analysis, plus provocation-driven discourse on the most urgent and important topics related to AI and business.

VIEW ISSUE

ces

Can

Be

Fixed

With

Discourse

Toby Daniels

Co-Founder, ON_Discourse

ON_Discourse co-founder Toby Daniels, a veteran of CES,
has taken over our CES planning meetings with hot takes
from his ample experience from the show. We thought we
should give him the pen to write a mini confessional about
the world’s biggest consumer tech conference. 
—ON_D

Toby Daniels

Co-Founder, ON_Discourse

CES is not new to me. I’ve been attending the event for over 15 years, having walked the crowded halls, networked in one event after the other, and seen countless overhyped tech unveilings.

Executives who report feeling disoriented and isolated.
Subscribe
To Our Newsletter

Receive CES event updates, plus preview articles and more.

CES’ primary problem is the whole event is confusing and crowded, while also
being extremely isolating. I am not alone in making this diagnosis; I have had
countless conversations with fellow convention goers and tech executives who
report feeling disoriented and lonely (especially during loud networking events).
This problem creates the conditions that lead to the second, most common issue.

In this mode, agreement is chosen over conflict, and innovation is nothing but an empty vessel of conventional ideas.

The event’s secondary problem mirrors a major issue in business, tech, and
media: groupthink. The show is an echo chamber with familiar faces and
conventional ideas wrapped in flashy tech. In this mode, agreement is chosen over
conflict, and innovation is nothing but an empty vessel of safe concepts.

CES is often touted as “a beacon for leaders in business and technology," where
the future meets today’s reality. While this paints a picture of innovation and
forward-thinking, it often masks the event’s superficial nature. CES, in all its
glory, can sometimes be more about shiny objects and getting into the hottest
party or VIP event rather than the depth of conversation. Despite the countless
curved TV screens that are never going to be a thing, I believe in the value of this
event and that we can fix CES.

The discipline of discourse is a forcing function that enables us to provoke, argue, challenge, and listen.
Learn More about
ON_Discourse

ON_Discourse is a private membership community and is made up of an expert network of business leaders who participate in the Discipline of Discourse in order to cultivate perspectives, decision-making, and meaningful relationships.

True perspective, I’ve learned, comes from heated debates, uncomfortable questions, and a willingness to listen to opposing viewpoints. This year, we are bringing our discourse and community to CES.

The discipline of discourse is a forcing function that lets us provoke, argue,
challenge, and listen – not just to reply, but to understand and consider. These
authentic engagements help us break free from the cycle of redundancy and
uncover truly groundbreaking ideas and new perspectives.

It's not just
about the technology; it's
about the intelligence behind it.
Learn more about
Intelligently Artificial Issue

How do we distinguish between artificial hype and intelligent opportunities?

At CES 2024, the ON_Discourse team will make the show in January worth
attending for our members, who will be organized into “Pods”, or small groups
that attend sessions together, join dinners, hit up parties, and practice the
discipline of discourse as a single unit. They will also get a guided experience,
including a kick-off briefing, a discourse-driven tour of the convention floor, and
invitations to a carefully curated list of events.

The discipline of discourse is a forcing function that lets us provoke, argue,
challenge, and listen – not just to reply, but to understand and consider. These
authentic engagements help us break free from the cycle of redundancy and
uncover truly groundbreaking ideas and new perspectives.

Apply for
Membership

Join ON_Discourse and get access to the ON_CES Intelligently Artificial Issue, exclusive events, and a discourse-driven floor tour showcasing the latest innovations in AI and tech.

As we move towards CES 2024, I feel a renewed sense of purpose. Our approach
is different – we won’t be there just to observe; we’ll be there to engage and
disrupt the status quo of conversations. We’re setting up to ensure our members
experience CES not as a showcase of gadgets, but as a forum of intelligent,
meaningful dialogue.

I am hopeful that with our concerted effort, this CES will mark a turning point.
Our next Issue, “Intelligently Artificial," will capture this shift from superficial
tech displays to rich, meaningful exchanges of ideas. It’s not just about the
technology; it’s about the intelligence behind it – the thoughts, the debates, and
the discourse.

Toby Daniels

Co-Founder, ON_Discourse

Join our growing community of business leaders, innovators, and entrepreneurs to access new perspectives, better decision-making, and more meaningful relationships.

Applications for 2023 close on December 22.

Apply for Membership

  • Hosted in partnership with Stagwell, ON_CES is taking the discourse straight to the convention floor.
  • We're going to dedicate our unique process to unpacking and distilling the bold exhibition claims that make this the world's biggest consumer technology convention.
  • A central theme of this issue will be the promise and implications of AI in consumer tech. What do the products on display represent for short and long term consumer trends? How do we distinguish between artificial hype and intelligent opportunities?

READ MORE ABOUT
WHY ON_CES

SUBSCRIBE TO LEARN
MORE ABOUT ON_CES

APPLY FOR
MEMBERSHIP

INQUIRE ABOUT
ATTENDING

  • ON_CES will include the launch of The Intelligently Artificial Issue, which will provide deep analysis, plus provocation-driven discourse on the most urgent and important topics related to AI and business.

CES

Can

Be

Fixed

With

DISCOURSE

Toby Daniels

Toby Daniels

Founder, ON_Discourse, former Chief Innovation Officer, Adweek, Founder and Chair, Social Media Week

Our co-founder Toby Daniels is a veteran of CES and has taken over our CES planning meetings with hot takes from his ample experience from the show. We thought we should give him a pen to write a mini-confessional about the world’s biggest consumer tech conference.
—ON_D

CES is not new to me. I’ve been attending the event for over 15 years times, walking the crowded halls, networking in one event after the other, and have seen countless over-hyped tech unveilings. I have seen the curved TV screens and they are still not going to be a thing. I believe in the value of this event and yet, after all of this time with it, can confidently tell you how it can be fixed.

Executives who
report feeling
disoriented and
isolated

First the primary problem: CES is loud, confusing, crowded, and extremely lonely. I am not alone in making this diagnosis; I have had countless conversations with fellow convention goers and tech executives who report feeling disoriented and isolated (especially during loud, engaged networking events). This problem creates the conditions that lead to the second, most commonly understood issue with CES.

In this mode,
agreement is
chosen over
conflict, and
innovation is nothing but an empty vessel of conventional ideas.

The secondary problem of CES is groupthink. It is an echo chamber with familiar faces and conventional ideas wrapped in flashy tech.  In this mode, agreement is chosen over conflict, and innovation is nothing but an empty vessel of conventional ideas.

CES is often touted as “a beacon for leaders in business and technology," where the future meets today’s realities. While this paints a picture of innovation and forward-thinking, it often masks the event’s superficial nature. CES, in all its glory, can sometimes be more about the display than the depth of conversation. We can change that.

True perspective, I’ve learned, comes from heated debates, uncomfortable questions, and the willingness to listen to opposing viewpoints.

The discipline
of discourse is a
forcing function that enables us to provoke, argue, challenge and listen.

This year we are bringing discourse and community to CES. 

The discipline of discourse is a forcing function that enables us to provoke, argue, challenge, and listen – not just to reply, but to understand and consider. It’s through these authentic engagements that we can break free from the cycle of redundancy and uncover truly groundbreaking ideas and new perspectives.

At CES this year the ON_Discourse team will provide an experience for its members that will serve as the singular reason to attend the show in January. We will deliver this in three ways:

An experience for its members that will serve as the singular reason to attend the show in January.

Curation:

  • A guided experience, including a kick-off briefing event, a discourse-driven tour of the convention floor, and invitations to a carefully curated list of events.

Connection:

  • Members will be organized into “Teams”, small groups who attend sessions together, join dinners, attend parties, and experience the event as a single unit.

Conversation:

  • The discipline of discourse is at the heart of everything we do. When applied to conversations at CES, we ensure that we follow the three pillars: Provoke, Listen, Change.

It’s not just
about the
technology; it’s
about the
intelligence
behind it.

As we move towards CES 2024, I feel a renewed sense of purpose. Our approach is different – we’re not just there to observe; we’re there to engage, to disrupt the status quo of conversations. We’re setting up to ensure our members experience CES not as a showcase of gadgets, but as a forum of intelligent, meaningful dialogue.

I am hopeful that with our concerted effort, this CES will mark a turning point. A shift from superficial tech displays to rich, meaningful exchanges of ideas and our next Issue, “Intelligently Artificial,"captures this essence perfectly. It’s not just about the technology; it’s about the intelligence behind it – the thoughts, the debates, the discourse.

Toby Daniels

Co-Founder, ON_Discourse

Want to be part of

Join our growing community of business leaders,
innovators and entrepreneurs to access new
perspectives, better decision making and more
meaningful relationships.

Applications for 2023 close November 30.

?

Apply for membership

USA

will

never win the

WORLD CUP

(unless the system changes)

Dennis Crowley

Technology entrepreneur working at the intersection of the real world & digital world. His work focuses on creating things that make everyday life feel a little more fun and playful.

What’s holding the United States back from becoming a soccer superpower like the rest of the world?

A few years ago, frustrated at seeing the US Men’s National Team (USMNT) struggle to qualify for the World Cup, I remember thinking to myself, “what can we, as fans, do to make sure the USMNT wins a World Cup in our lifetime?”

My experiences as the founder and chairman of Stockade FC (a semi-pro team in the Hudson Valley) and the co-founder of Street FC (“SoulCycle, but for pickup soccer”) have given me front-row seats to the shortcomings of our nation’s approach to the beautiful game.

First and foremost, here in the US, Major League Soccer (MLS) operates as a closed system. Teams pay exorbitant fees to join a top-flight league that never threatens relegation, while clubs in lower-level leagues are denied the opportunity for promotion, regardless of their performance on the field. This starkly contrasts with the open, merit-based systems seen in Europe and almost everywhere else in the world, which drives competition, growth, and investment (not to mention excitement and drama for fans worldwide).

The lack of a merit-based promotion and relegation system in the US stifles the hyper-competitive environment that is crucial for developing both top-tier talent and compelling narratives.

The lack of a merit-based promotion and relegation system in the US stifles the hyper-competitive environment that is crucial for developing both top-tier talent and compelling narratives. This has led to a US soccer ecosystem that hinders investment in both club infrastructure and youth development at the lower levels, which is vital for nurturing homegrown talent and growing fans of the game.

Why does this matter? In the absence of a hyper-competitive domestic league, we are failing to produce world-class players and attract the best talent from abroad while they’re still in their prime. It’s an open secret that top American players flee to European leagues as soon as they hit their teens, while the best players in the world look to wind down their careers in the MLS. The closed nature of our leagues has created a comfortable, risk-averse culture that is the antithesis to the spirit of the game worldwide.

Creating a European-style, open-league system in the US that benefits owners, fans, and players alike, would be challenging, but not impossible. We would need a vision, a plan, and a timeline from United States Soccer Federation (USSF) leadership. Unfortunately, there seems to be a reluctance to formally lay out such a plan, as it would disrupt the status quo (specifically, MLS owners who invested millions in their clubs, but who never “signed up” for relegation). In short, MLS investments have taken priority over creating a cohesive US soccer ecosystem with healthy lower-level leagues.

Meanwhile, in Europe, football folklore is fueled by the possibility of any club from any league achieving a meteoric rise through the ranks. These stories captivate fans and embody the very essence of sport—hope, ambition, and the reward for hard work. Unfortunately, the structure of the US Soccer ecosystem denies this opportunity and prevents these Cinderella-esque stories that all sports fans love (see: NCAA March Madness).

The current US system offers little incentive for soccer entrepreneurs to invest in the lower levels of domestic soccer.

The current US system offers little incentive for soccer entrepreneurs to invest in the lower levels of domestic soccer. With no “pot of gold” for club owners to chase in the US (such as revenue sharing from sponsorships and broadcast rights that come with promotion), the financial prospects on investments in lower-level clubs are bleak compared to the potential return on investments in foreign clubs, where even an obscure lower-level club can rise through the ranks and multiply in value. This is why you see the Ryan Reynolds of the world investing in lower-level soccer infrastructure abroad (in open systems), but not here in the US (our closed system).

I founded Stockade FC after asking myself the question “what can we do to help the USMNT win a World Cup in our lifetime?” My answer: “Support local soccer.” For me, this meant putting my entrepreneurial skills to work in creating a club from scratch in the Hudson Valley of New York and creating a blueprint for other clubs inspired to do the same. This has certainly made an impact – creating clubs, players, fans, inspiring youth, etc. – but not enough to move the needle on a national scale.

Do you
disagree or
have a
completely different perspective? We'd love to know:

editor@ondiscourse.com


For US Soccer to evolve, there are a dozen changes that need to be made – from creating an open system of promotion and relegation to making youth soccer more affordable, to making soccer more accessible in cities by converting basketball courts into dual-sport courts (spoiler: put a goal under that net!), to elevating the US Open Cup to the same level as the NCAA basketball tournament.

What’s next for soccer in the US? As much as I would love to see the change start from the bottom up (with the lower-level leagues self-organizing), I really think the most impactful change will come from a well-articulated vision of how to turn our closed system into an open system from the new leadership at US Soccer. The timing is right – the USSF has a new CEO and the World Cup will be hosted across 11 American cities in 2026. There is a palpable buzz around soccer in the US (thanks to everyone from Lionel Messi to Ted Lasso), but only if we channel this energy into transformative action can we hope to create a domestic soccer ecosystem as dynamic and exciting as those that thrill fans across the globe.

Can insurgent leagues capture market share from the NFL?

This topic kept coming up in our various events: the NFL is God. And God is immune to all the forces that are challenging the other incumbent leagues like the NBA and MLB. What makes the NFL so powerful? Is it a better TV experience? Is it a better sport? The rest of the world would argue against that. (And they probably want the word football back).

Better storytelling can bring new audiences to traditional sports


The NFL is built on initial scarcity. It started with two games broadcasted one day a week in the autumn. Then came Sunday Night Football, then Monday Night Football. Then Thursday Night Football followed that. Now we have Sunday Ticket and the Red Zone channel. All of that football turned into fantasy football leagues, online gambling. And all of that engagement is padded with endless expert analysis that fills in the gaps in between all the snaps. Is this ecosystem too strong to be disrupted?

This question unlocked a lot of thinking.

What does a league need to thrive? How can an old sport evolve and find new audiences? Can a team of insurgent leagues take down the mighty NFL?

Yes, but...

Sports need tribes to survive

Emil Protalinski

Managing Editor, ON_Discourse

Aly Wagner is a former professional soccer player, an Olympic gold medalist, and as of this year, a co-founder of Bay FC, a new US professional women’s soccer team based in the San Francisco Bay Area. We spoke with her on the Playing Business podcast about the future of sports broadcasting, reaching fans amidst influencer-driven social media, and her journey of launching the newest team in the National Women’s Soccer League.

Wagner has watched men’s and women’s soccer develop in the US from when she fell in love with the sport all the way through to her professional career.

“I think that was just this pure passion phase of football,” Wagner told us. “You did it for the right reasons, and it still wasn’t looked at as a commercial proposition. It wasn’t looked at as something that was monetizable by smart businesspeople. And the entertainment value—US fans didn’t get behind for a long time."

Growing an insurgent soccer club

Nowadays, not only are there US soccer fans, but multiple generations of US soccer fans. There are incumbents, like the established National Women’s Soccer League, and newer players in the space, like Wagner’s Bay FC, which is smaller and thus, as Wagner put it, “perhaps more nimble” when it comes to being able to innovate.

“We’re in the growth phase,” Wagner said. “And so, there’s just so many more variables that we can fold into, hopefully our business model and strategy. Soup to nuts. We’re talking about game day experience, but we’re also talking about the long-term strategy for the team, for the league, for soccer in general. I think about that all the time. Yes, Bay FC is this project that I’m working on, but I’m also thinking about other ways to potentially innovate in this space and I think it’s a careful one to be navigated because soccer is such a traditional sport.”

“I think there is something to be done around, shorter condensed content” 

Innovation in legacy sports leagues

Wagner explained that sports like soccer, golf, and tennis are very traditional sports with protocols that players and fans follow. The question is, how much of these sports can you disrupt without ruining them? The NFL and the NBA aren’t as traditional, so they have more opportunity to lean into new strategies, she argued. Nevertheless, soccer needs to try.

“I think there is something to be done around, shorter condensed content,” Wagner said. “I think there’s something to be done around, maybe, smaller teams, more skills contests. Just think about the fact that if you’re a soccer player and you go to the Olympics, you only have one event that you can win. That’s the team event. You win. You get one gold medal. Well, if you’re a swimmer, you go and you have how many events you can enter in? You do freestyle, you could do the 50, you can do the 100, you can do IM [individual medley]. You can be Michael Phelps and walk away with 17 gold medals in one Olympics.”

(Aly Wagner has won two gold medals, one at the 2004 Olympic games and one at the 2008 Olympic games.)

Wagner said she thinks soccer should explore more condensed formats, various bite sized consumable formats, and what 11v11 football can look like without ruining the fan’s experience. At the same time, she knows that above all else, fans are most interested in the players.

“The athlete drives fandom” 

Leaning into stars over gimmicks

“The athlete drives fandom,” Wagner said. “Again, this applies to both men’s and women’s, but at Bay FC in particular, we don’t need gimmicks. The NWS doesn’t need gimmicks to get eyeballs. It just needs investment in the right area. Investment in the right area is bringing in those top global superstars that drive fandom. And then it’s creating those connections that live past the entrance and exit of those players. Can you make them come back for more, despite that player’s exit?”

Female athletes have plenty of experience in finding interesting ways to create narratives around their careers, Wagner argued. They know how best to connect with their fans.

“We’ve had to sell ourselves in a positive light,” Wagner said

I think that that has set up a great understanding within the league, within the teams, particularly Bay FC, that the way that we tell the stories of our players, the way that we tell the story of our club, the way that we tell the stories around our community, the things that we all care about. Those are the connection points.”

Bay FC plans to invest in all these storytelling areas and innovate its way to building fandom. She acknowledged that the days of only one way to consume sports is long gone, and that ultimately brings opportunity.

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE

“If you’re telling someone that they’ve got to sit through 90 minutes or two hours of a match, that just sounds awful. But if you show them what it feels like, that is where it’s a win.” 

The importance of owning your data

“I come from a broadcast background, so we’ve been looking at that for a very long time,” Wagner said. “There’s some compelling data that we have the opportunity to garner as it relates to innovation. Historically, you don’t necessarily know and own the data of who’s tuning into your games. Your broadcast partners do. Now with the way that you can connect directly with the fans, you do own that data. You have the possibility then, of multiple touch points.”

Wagner has spent a lot of time thinking about these cultural connection points, especially the ones driven on social media, and how best to develop the players’ stories.

The risks and rewards of personal athlete brands

“If you’re listing out your top five targets, social media reach, intrigue, fan, fandom, connection, all of that is factored into the value of that player, in terms of who you’re going to target as your top players,” Wagner said. “But in terms of developing it, yes, we want to provide access for these players to be able to monetize themselves, to tell their stories, to become an intriguing person that everyone wants to know more about, ultimately more engagement, more fandom, and you get on the flywheel.”

This is not a simple equation. There are tradeoffs to making your athletes available to fans through various mediums.

“But I also would just caution that there’s risk in that too,” Wagner said. “There’s so much risk in like these young players being exposed to that early on. What are they losing sight of? I do think that with the access and the exposure that these young athletes are having to navigate, I just think it becomes a moral question as well as one that is business-driven. And I think that’s the fine line that we as a club really want to be cognizant of and respect these players, put them first, as a human and not something to be monetized. So, I think that is a balance that we have to strike as a club. But absolutely, if someone’s all in and they want to do it and they’re not suffering on the field, it makes a ton of sense.”

Do you
disagree or
have a
completely different perspective? We'd love to know:

editor@ondiscourse.com

Should live sports embrace reality TV?

And of course, we asked Wagner if live sports need to embrace reality TV or if the death of live sports has been greatly exaggerated. She lands in the latter camp.

“Sometimes the selling of it is more important,” Wagner said. “If you’re telling someone that they’ve got to sit through 90 minutes or two hours of a match, that just sounds awful. But if you show them what it feels like, that is where it’s a win. That’s where you’re like, I’m there. I want to show up. I absolutely think live sports matter. I just think at this point, everything is tied into sports now. Everything is tied into attention. How do I grab attention? Well, I can get it through sport. And, and live sport in particular—if that connection goes away, I don’t think that the value proposition will be there anymore.”

Emil Protalinski

Managing Editor, ON_Discourse

Can insurgent leagues capture market share from the NFL?

This topic kept coming up in our various events: the NFL is God. And God is immune to all the forces that are challenging the other incumbent leagues like the NBA and MLB. What makes the NFL so powerful? Is it a better TV experience? Is it a better sport? The rest of the world would argue against that. (And they probably want the word football back).

Better storytelling can bring new audiences to traditional sports


The NFL is built on initial scarcity. It started with two games broadcasted one day a week in the autumn. Then came Sunday Night Football, then Monday Night Football. Then Thursday Night Football followed that. Now we have Sunday Ticket and the Red Zone channel. All of that football turned into fantasy football leagues, online gambling. And all of that engagement is padded with endless expert analysis that fills in the gaps in between all the snaps. Is this ecosystem too strong to be disrupted?

This question unlocked a lot of thinking.

What does a league need to thrive? How can an old sport evolve and find new audiences? Can a team of insurgent leagues take down the mighty NFL?

Yes, but...

Sports need tribes to survive

‏‏‎ ‎ ‎I‏‏‎‎SSUE RECAP: ‎ ‎

Fans are

the new

free agent

Matthew Chmiel

Head of Discourse

We drive discussion through a “Living Issues” content experience. As we transition to the themes, topics, and provocations of our next issue, let’s zoom out on the Fan Experience Issue, and try to make sense of what we learned and what comes next. Our issues never formally close; we will let you know whenever a new perspective comes along that can contribute to this exploration.

We launched The Fan Experience Issue with a focus on engaging sports fans. The big US leagues are built on a foundation of traditional distribution channels and platforms that nurture a stable transfer of fan engagement from one generation to the next. The stability of that engagement is extremely valuable, essentially transmogrifying a set of quaint “sports-ball” hobbies into multi-billion-dollar industries that define our culture. All that money has been a ballast against the disruptive digital forces that have reshaped other traditional industries.

As the newspaper industry literally folds, and the music industry turns to streaming, the world of sports fans is still organizing its schedules to watch the live game–and advertisers are capitalizing on that attention. Our Fan Experience Issue thesis was that the same forces that killed newspapers are going to impact the fan experience. Our goal was to investigate these forces and identify and understand the opportunities.

This exploration was ignited by a thought-provoking question at an event we hosted in Nashville for our members and leaders in business and sport. Our co-founder, Toby Daniels, interrupted our mingling guests with a hypothetical question that put it all in context:

IF YOU HAD $100M, WHERE WOULD YOU INVEST IT FOR THE BEST 10 YEAR RETURN?

The answer to this question had to involve professional sports. It could involve an ownership stake in a big league franchise, or a piece of equity in an up-and-coming insurgent league. The $100 million could be invested in live media rights for Thursday Night Football (like how Amazon is investing $11 billion over the next decade), or in improved production features of traditional sports. We heard so many answers and perspectives that really put this issue into overdrive.

We collected a series of guest contributors who are experts in identifying and analyzing trends in the business of sports. Some are pushing to innovate traditional broadcast formats, while others are leading a gut-renovation into how our oldest sports are played. The reverberations of their investments are going to drive the next generation of investments in fan engagement.

You can see their work in
the provocation list below:

Are live sports rights a bursting media bubble?

[ MAYBE ]

Game Over? The Uncertain Future of Live Sports

[ YES ]

Live Sports Needs to Embrace the Realities of Reality TV

[ NO WAY ]

The Death of Live Sports is Greatly Exaggerated

Can insurgent leagues capture market share from the NFL?

[ NOT QUITE ]

Innovating Without Losing Traditional Fans

[ YES ]

The Future is Fan Controlled

[ PROBABLY ]

Tech is the Uncanny Valley of Fan Experience

“Soccer has changed so much over the course of its inception. Today, the athlete drives fandom.”

Unpacking the discourse

We cannot predict the future but the discourse this month shifted our perspective about professional sports. At first we focused primarily on the big insurgent leagues and the future of media rights, towering like a mountain range on the horizon. As we dug deeper into the topic, we discovered a developing ecosystem lying beneath the surface. A lot of innovative thinking and investment capital is flowing into insurgent leagues who are finding ways to drive market share without leaning on media rights. This type of entrepreneurial thinking is helping to redefine the way traditional games can be played for modern audiences. As Aly Wagner, co-founder of Bay FC told DK and Dan in Playing Business, “Soccer has changed so much over the course of its inception. Today, the athlete drives fandom.” She is taking that thinking to create new opportunities and experiences to let the athletes shine in her new franchise. As she said “the athlete drives fandom.” And that right there is where we are centering our primary takeaways from this issue.

Time for your takes. Let us know what you think and tell us how you would invest that $100M in professional sports. Reach out to chmiel@ondiscourse.com
Stay tuned for the next issue.

Issue #004

“Influencers are the modern athletes.”

“Fans are the new Free Agents.”

“Insurgent Sports Innovate.”

“Thrive To Survive”

In the closing days of October, ON_Discourse assembled in Music City around our recent ON_Sport release: The Fan Experience Issue. Let’s recap…

Under the starry skies of Nashville, a small group of founders, partners, entrepreneurs, former athletes, and ON_Discourse members broke bread paired perfectly with wine, and debated the future of the sports industry and the fan experience.

I want to provoke people into discourse and let their conversation work it out.” 

ON_Discourse co-founders Dan Gardner and Toby Daniels served as the night’s primary provocateurs. This event was designed to be different; their plan was to provoke more and talk less. In the moments before dinner, Gardner told me how he spent the previous week preparing for every conceivable angle of our provocations. “I want to make sure we’re not just being interesting at the table; we need to push the concepts to the brink of disagreement. I want to provoke people into discourse and let their conversation work it out.” 

Mission accomplished. Toby afterwards relayed the feeling at the table, telling me “we barely had to talk. People came to the table ready to get into it and then that’s exactly what they did.” While happy to hear this news, I was curious; did something happen in this event that elevated the discourse to this level? Toby went on to explain how it all worked: “while the members and guests were sipping wine we posed a warm-up question that got their discourse gears turning. All this happened before we introduced our first technical provocation.” I pressed further until Toby shared the key warm-up question that set it all off:

IF YOU HAD $100M,

WHERE WOULD YOU INVEST IT FOR THE BEST 10 YEAR RETURN?

Remember that this question had a few parameters that guests were told to keep. The money had to be invested somewhere in the world of professional sports. It could go into an ownership stake in an incumbent league, like an NFL franchise, or it could go into a number of breakout insurgent leagues that are capturing market share in the ever-changing landscape of professional sports. We learned a lot about these insurgent leagues in this issue: Topgolf for Tennis, Fan Controlled Football, and we also reported on a lot of innovative successful acts that other leagues like F1 and the LIV Tour. A variety of perspectives were processed in the first few minutes of this session. We can even report that one of our guests' perspectives fully changed by the end of the night. That is true discourse!

Key takeaways, quotes, and moments:

Who has a better deal on F1? Netflix or ESPN?

  • The sustained success of F1’s Netflix hit “Drive to Survive” became the proxy for media rights bubble perspective. The discussion on this issue involved a real-time breakdown of the economics of media rights vs dramatic documentary footage.
    • Netflix spends between $40 - $60M per year for access to produce Drive to Survive.
    • ESPN spends $500M per year for live media rights of the races
    • Netflix averages ~ 600K views per episode
    • ESPN averages ~ 1.2M viewers per race

People don’t care about teams anymore. They care about influencers.

Who has a better deal on F1? Netflix or ESPN?

  • The sustained success of F1’s Netflix hit “Drive to Survive” became the proxy for media rights bubble perspective. The discussion on this issue involved a real-time breakdown of the economics of media rights vs dramatic documentary footage.
    • Netflix spends between $40 - $60M per year for access to produce Drive to Survive.
    • ESPN spends $500M per year for live media rights of the races
    • Netflix averages ~ 600K views per episode
    • ESPN averages ~ 1.2M viewers per race

Would Dennis Rodman be the highest-paid athlete in the NBA today? The Kardashian effect meets the court…

  • The conversation about the future of fans turned into economic incentives for leagues and franchises. In this scenario, the league has a clear incentive to capitalize on the halo effect of enhanced social media attention. Will this incentive drive contract deals and other player incentives - shifting priorities away from abilities and success on the field and more towards engagement in the feeds?

How do you react to the takeaways from the event?
What have you been thinking about in this issue?
Let us know and join the discourse.
Reach out to me at chmiel@ondiscourse.com and we can keep the discourse flowing.

More

AI: A Goldmine or a Landmine For Athlete Brands?

An NBA Player Surveys the AI Opportunity

Did Tom Brady Really Say That?

Media Companies Shouldn’t Reject Generative AI

Intellectual Property Law and AI: The Future of Athlete Branding

The Fan Experience Event Preview

LIV Golf’s Playbook: Innovating Without Losing Traditional Fans

Home Field Advantage: The Community Experience is Paramount

The Future is Fan Controlled

The Future of Golf Will Be Simulated

Game Over? The Uncertain Future of Live Sports

The Death of Live Sports is Greatly Exaggerated

Live Sport Needs to Embrace the Realities of Reality TV

Tech: The Uncanny Valley of Fan Experience

Fans Are The New Free Agent

Today’s sports fans will wax poetic, yelling at the TV during championship games, going crazy over a manager’s line-up choices, and incredulously watching as a player tries to make ESPN’s Top 10 over what’s best for the team. Diehards dream of drawing up the Xs and Os in these critical situations — mapping out gameplans, making substitutions during the game, and calling the last play to deliver the win. 

While emerging streaming services and the legalization of sports gambling have been a financial boon for the live gameday experience, disinterest among America’s youngest viewers, especially Gen Z, has become a challenge for professional sports. 

50% of Gen Zs in the U.S. never attended a pro sports event 

40% never watch live sports, less than any other age group 

81% of pro sports revenue comes from media rights, sponsorships, and ticket sales 

The economics of the live sports experience are undergoing a significant transformation, driven by the values, viewing preferences, and behaviors of Gen Z. There is no shortage of marketers who, for years, have preached that they are the future of sports. As this generation becomes an increasingly influential force, professional sports organizations and the broader sports industry must adapt to meet their changing demands. Those who have embraced these shifts and find innovative ways to engage with Gen Z will likely thrive, while those who resist change may face challenges in the evolving sports landscape. Embracing the Gen Z mindset and preferences will be crucial for the continued success and growth of the sports industry.

  • Gen Zs consume sports content mainly through short-form, interactive social media
  • 87% of Gen Z plays video games on mobile devices and consoles, where they expect to play the game, not just watch it
  • Live sports for Gen Z need to be interactive and community-focused, with brand engagement built into the game experience 

“There is no shortage of marketers who, for years, have preached that they are the future of sports.”

What is the future of fan experience and engaging the next generation of sports fans?

Enter Fan Controlled Sports and Entertainment (FCSE). Since 2017, the brand has taken an innovative, fan-driven approach, merging the excitement of live sports with the interactivity of video games. 

The FCSE concept has successfully facilitated the launch of two seasons of Fan Controlled Football (FCF). It is now set to introduce Fan Controlled Racing (FCR) during NASCAR’s Championship Race at Phoenix Raceway, scheduled for November 4th. This innovative approach grants fans unprecedented influence and access by empowering them to make pivotal decisions. The line between spectator and participant blurs, and fans become an integral part of the action. Like in a video game, fans are incentivized to make good decisions for their team’s future by being awarded FanIQ points, which are akin to experience points in the gaming world. Play votes posted by fans with more experience points carry a heavier weight.

The concept of “fan controlled” aims to democratize professional sports, creating an unprecedented immersive live fan experience. The idea is to redefine how fans engage, creating a new category of entertainment catering to the digitally connected audience hungry to own, shape, and manage a sports franchise ready for the metaverse. Fan Controlled sports leagues align seamlessly with the expectations of a new generation of fans who have grown up in an interactive digital landscape. Here’s why such a league could captivate this audience:

“Fan Controlled sports leagues align seamlessly with the expectations of a new generation of fans who have grown up in an interactive digital landscape.”

The first two seasons of FCF proved successful, especially in community engagement, with over 250,000 registered downloads via CONTROL App. (making it a top 10 sports app in the U.S.), 2.4 million live viewers per week and over 100 million highlight views across all FCF distribution platforms. FCF increased viewership from 375,000 per game at the start of season one to 2.5 million at the championship game of season two.

Integration of Gaming and Sports

Many younger fans are avid gamers accustomed to controlling outcomes and strategies within a virtual world. A Fan Controlled league blurs the lines between gaming and live sports, appealing to the gamer’s mindset and potentially expanding the sports audience.

“Many younger fans are avid gamers accustomed to controlling outcomes and strategies within a virtual world.”

Engagement Through Interactivity

The interactive model of a Fan Controlled league converts passive viewing into an active experience. For a generation accustomed to engaging with content rather than just consuming it, this could revolutionize the fan experience, making it more immersive and personalized.

The first two seasons of FCF proved successful, especially in community engagement, with over 250,000 registered downloads via CONTROL App. (making it a top 10 sports app in the U.S.), 2.4 million live viewers per week and over 100 million highlight views across all FCF distribution platforms. FCF increased viewership from 375,000 per game at the start of season one to 2.5 million at the championship game of season two.

Leveraging Social Media and Online Communities

Social media has cultivated a culture of participation and community. A Fan Controlled league, which could integrate with these platforms, taps into the desire to share opinions and influence outcomes, much like a live-action social media platform.

Fan Controlled Sports can tap into a community of like-minded 18-34 year old sports and fantasy gurus, appealing to online gamers and streaming enthusiasts who grew up in the shadow of EA’s Madden video game franchise, all ready to embrace the future. 

A New Level of Accessibility

The traditional barriers between athletes and fans are diminishing. A Fan Controlled league that allows fans to call plays or make decisions can provide an unparalleled sense of access and connection to the athletes and the game itself.

“The traditional barriers between athletes and fans are diminishing.”

Data-Driven Personalization

This generation is used to algorithm-driven personalization, from streaming platforms to online shopping. A Fan Controlled league that uses data to enhance the interactive experience could offer personalized engagement at an unprecedented level.

Educational Perspective

By making strategic decisions, fans can gain a deeper understanding of the sport. This educational component can increase appreciation for the complexities of the game and the skills of the players.

Continual Innovation

Younger audiences are quick to adopt new technologies. A Fan Controlled league that continually innovates can stay at the forefront of entertainment, consistently offering fresh and exciting experiences.

Marketability and Monetization

Interactivity opens new avenues for monetization, such as microtransactions for voting rights or exclusive access, catering to a demographic already familiar with such models in other forms of entertainment.

Utilizing blockchain technology, the league was able to successfully merge the physical sports and digital worlds to create a new, exciting Web3 experience. In doing so, the decentralized nature of the blockchain ensures that the FCF platform enables tamper-proof tracking of fan tokens used to participate in decision-making and other league-related activities. 

  • 5K+ Unique purchases in Season v2.0
  • 23K+ Total purchases and minting of digital collectibles, avatars 
  • $900 ARPU of our diehard fans

The Fan Controlled concept represents a promising avenue for the future of professional sports. It can revolutionize the industry by enhancing fan engagement, expanding the global reach of sports, democratizing decision-making, and offering new financial opportunities. 

Is data the new highlight and are fans the new free agents?

[ NOT QUITE ]

Innovating without losing traditional fans

[ PROBABLY ]

Over-engineered technology might sterilize sport

Do you agree with this?
Do you disagree or have a completely different perspective?
We’d love to know

More

Fans are the new free agent

AI: A Goldmine or a Landmine For Athlete Brands?

An NBA Player Surveys the AI Opportunity

Did Tom Brady Really Say That?

Media Companies Shouldn’t Reject Generative AI

Intellectual Property Law and AI: The Future of Athlete Branding

LIV Golf’s Playbook: Innovating Without Losing Traditional Fans

Home Field Advantage: The Community Experience is Paramount

The Future is Fan Controlled

The Future of Golf Will Be Simulated

Game Over? The Uncertain Future of Live Sports

The Death of Live Sports is Greatly Exaggerated

Live Sport Needs to Embrace the Realities of Reality TV

Tech: The Uncanny Valley of Fan Experience

What if the next golf megastar came straight outta Compton? That’d be a story, right? You’d double-click that. But, how would something like that come about? Not too many country clubs in the immediate area last I checked, and the closest TopGolf is about 15 miles away. If anything, Compton is very anti-country club, so that kind of outsider story would likely appeal to a much wider audience outside the traditional golf world

The Need for Inclusivity and Innovation

The traditional golf world has been spinning ever since LIV disrupted the scene in trying to streamline the game, then agreed to merge with PGA, as the sport seeks to reshape itself for a wider, younger, more diverse audience. LIV, however, only goes so far in changing the game. While trimming the game, it’s still traditional golf, and it’s not doing that much to appeal to a broader audience.   

When Tiger Woods became the youngest golfer to win the Masters at 21 in 1997, he breathed life into what many were seeing as a dying sport, and was essentially responsible for putting Nike golf on the map. Now years later, Tiger Woods is helping to further revolutionize the sport and make it more accessible as part of the LA Golf Club, and taking it into the 21st Century, as the first announced team of the TGL. 

Embracing Diverse Ownership and Storytelling

What sets LAGC apart from the other TGL teams, who are owned by some of the same companies that own the Boston Red Sox and the Atlanta Falcons, is our owners’ background. Not only are Serena and Venus Williams investors but with Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian as one of our owners, our DNA is more aligned with storytelling and social-media interaction than traditional sports owners. And with LAGC, we’re not only telling the story, we’re providing the medium to help bring it about.  

As far as I’m concerned, a modern sports franchise is 365-day-a-year storytelling, not just stories about the players, but about the community as well. But those stories, to appeal to a wider, younger audience, need to be repackaged using today’s technology to compete with all the other stories out there. Making golf a star-studded, team “one swing at a time action” sport, enhanced by technology, and bringing the action to a stadium TV-friendly level will not only make golf more accessible, but it’s how the PGA (which owns 18% of TGL) is going to evolve,  and expand their audience, by making it more interesting and story focused. 

Community Engagement and Accessibility

Not only will Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy play for LAGC over the 15-week season beginning in January, LAGC will also be taking golf out to the community with our Drivebox simulator, which folds out to become a LAGC billboard. I can go into any community that I want throughout LA, I can go to Watts. I can go to Compton, I can go to K town, I can go to schools. And if a golf simulator is good enough for Tiger, that’s going to get people who’d never think of using a simulator more interested in trying one out. There’s going to be stories of young kids, where golf is their outlet, their passion, and we’re going to be telling the stories about those that come from LA, that don’t look like the traditional golfer. 

The Influence of Celebrity and Narrative

And if you don’t think the top-down approach of using star power and storytelling has reach, then you’re not familiar with a soccer, or football, team no one ever heard about until Ryan Reynolds bought them. I’m talking about Wrexham. They built a global fandom around this team that nobody had heard of. It was about their storytelling. They even launched a Hulu series called” Welcome to Wrexham,” that is now in its second season. We’re already made-for-TV golf, and unique in that not too many sports leagues launch this kind of star power and the prime-time slot usually occupied by Monday Night Football on ESPN from day one. 

For those who think this is just golf “jumping the shark” to try to get new viewers, we’re capitalizing on things that are already happening. With franchises like TopGolf, people are already playing golf in a way that looks nothing like traditional golf. Why does a golf simulator have to hit out into a simulated golf course? Why not Jurassic Park, or Angry Birds? Shorter attention spans need to be courted, using technology not usually associated with golf, like sensors on the greens and drone footage.

A New Era for Golf

It’s like people who still dump on eSports with “Who’s going to watch people play video games?” when it’s already a rapidly growing multibillion-dollar industry. To get the younger demographic, the wider, more democratic audience that PGA wants --- the Twitch streamers, the TikTok, IG, and other influencers, the story-hungry sports fan --- golf has to evolve to appeal to an audience that already has their plate filled with distractions, that have been leveraged, and made more addicting with technology. 

Do you agree with this?
Do you disagree or have a completely different perspective?
We’d love to know

Is the NFL immune from disruption?

This topic kept coming up in our various events: the NFL is God. And God is immune to all the forces that are challenging the other incumbent leagues like the NBA and MLB. What makes the NFL so powerful? Is it a better TV experience? Is it a better sport? The rest of the world would argue against that. (And they probably want the word football back).

[ MAYBE ]

Sports needs tribes to survive

More

The Future is Fan Controlled

The Future of Golf Will Be Simulated

Game Over? The Uncertain Future of Live Sports

The Death of Live Sports is Greatly Exaggerated

Live Sport Needs to Embrace the Realities of Reality TV

Tech: The Uncanny Valley of Fan Experience

The Fan Experience Event Preview

LIV Golf’s Playbook: Innovating Without Losing Traditional Fans

Home Field Advantage: The Community Experience is Paramount

Fans Are The New Free Agent

Did Tom Brady Really Say That?

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