Innovation
Where rights holders fit in the Gulf's sports tech boom
Sam Cherry
Founder
,
2403 Group
9
minutes to read
KEY TAKEAWAY
Capital, events and policy in the Gulf are all pushing sports tech the same way. The scarce ingredient is rights holders ready to act as test beds and paying customers for the startups that capital is creating. If you can offer real fans at a real event, you have more to bargain with than you might think.
On any given day in the Gulf, two very different sports tech conversations are going on: one about a deal worth billions, the other about whether a founder can test her fan app at next month's match. Sports technology had a landmark year in 2025, with deals worth $200bn announced, including the $55bn acquisition of EA by Saudi Arabia's PIF and Silver Lake.
The second conversation gets far less attention, but it's the one most rights holders should care about. Gulf capital now buys stakes in the technology behind sport as well as sponsoring it, which raises a practical question: where's the money going, and where's the opportunity for everyone else? The answer is more local and specific than the headlines suggest, and it depends less on cheque size than on who's willing to host a pilot.
$14.3bn
raised by sports tech companies across 500 private placements in 2025
Drake Star, 2026
$22bn+
projected value of Saudi Arabia's sports sector by 2030
SURJ via Arab News, 2026
$75m
record-breaking prize pool for the Esports World Cup 2026
Esports World Cup Foundation, 2026
How much money is in play
Globally, sports tech companies raised $14.3bn across 500 private placements in 2025, and investors focused on the sector raised more than $12bn of new funds. The Gulf is behind some of the biggest cheques, with the PIF and Silver Lake deal for EA the headline transaction.
Saudi Arabia's plans show the scale. A December 2024 report by SURJ Sports Investments, a PIF company, said the sector could be worth more than $22bn by 2030. The number of sports federations rose to 98 in 2024 from 32 in 2015, and multi-sport clubs rose to 126 from nine in 2019. Every new federation and club is someone a startup could sell to. In gaming, Savvy Games Group set out SAR 142bn of investment, including SAR 2bn for early-stage video game and esports companies, and its targets include 250 games companies in the Kingdom and 39,000 jobs by 2030.
Events turn capital into shop windows. The Esports World Cup 2026 offered a record-breaking $75m prize pool to more than 2,000 players and 200 clubs from over 100 countries. Every event on that scale needs ticketing, broadcast, data, integrity, fan engagement and venue technology, and most of it is bought in rather than built.
If you've got fans and a venue, you've got exactly what the startups this money backs are looking for.
Who's backing the region's young companies?
Qatar SportsTech drew more than 400 applications for its first accelerator programme and selected 10 startups. By 2021, 35 of its alumni had raised nearly $10m. In the UAE, Ethara launched E1H in Abu Dhabi in June 2025 as the country's first dedicated sports ecosystem and incubator, with eight startups in its first six-week programme. In Saudi Arabia, Monsha'at and RSport Holding launched a 24-week Sports Innovation Incubator in April 2026. That's a steady flow of founders, and most will need somewhere to prove what they've built.
Government is putting numbers on the prize, too. Dubai Sports Council's announcement of its LEVEL UP sports tech expo projected the Middle East and Africa sports tech market at $3.3bn by 2030, and put Dubai's sports industry at around $2.5bn a year. A market that size can support local champions as well as regional sales offices for global vendors.
What you can offer that investors can't
Capital can buy companies, events and talent, but it can't buy proof. Even a well-funded startup has to show its product working with real fans at a real venue on a real match day, and that proof comes from rights holders. The better you know those fans, who they are and how they behave, the more that proof is worth to a founder.
Investors care about exits, too. M&A accounted for $156bn of disclosed deal value across 450 deals in 2025. A startup that has proven itself with a Gulf club, league, festival or venue is easier to back and easier to buy, which strengthens your hand. I'd use that, and ask for a discount on the product, a revenue share or an equity option in return for access.
Worth pausing on
If a promising startup asked tomorrow to run a pilot at your venue, event or club, what would you need in place to say yes within a month? And who would actually make that call?
Three Key Steps
Make yourself easy to find, work through the accelerators and agree the terms before anything starts.
1
Publish what you'd pay to fix
List the operational and fan problems worth real money to you, alongside the data and access you could offer a pilot, and let what you know about your fans decide which products to pilot first. Startups can't pitch for problems they can't see. Accelerators can help: Qatar SportsTech connected its startups with organisations such as the Supreme Committee, Qatar Stars League and beIN Media Group.
2
Plug into a programme that exists
There's no need to build an accelerator of your own. Team up with one that's already running in your market, such as Qatar SportsTech, E1H or the Monsha'at incubator. Then offer its startups pilot slots, so the programme does the scouting and you do the testing. In previous roles our team saw cohorts of 10 startups supported with grants of $15,000 to $40,000.
3
Agree what happens if it works
Before any pilot starts, settle what a good result leads to: a paid contract, a revenue share or an equity option. Put a deadline on it and agree a clear measure of success. A pilot with no route to a contract wastes both sides' time, and it teaches the better startups to take their next idea somewhere else.
If you've got fans and a venue, you've got exactly what the startups this money backs are looking for.
What Gulf rights holders have that founders need
Funding gets the headlines, but for many startups the harder thing to find is often a live environment where they can prove the product works. That's the asset you hold. A club with a season of match days, a venue with a full events calendar or a league with its own data is exactly what founders and investors want access to.
There's no shortage of demand to work with, either. PwC puts the number of gaming enthusiasts in Saudi Arabia at 23.5 million, 67% of the population. About 48% of Saudis now take part in weekly sport or physical activity. Those are big, active audiences, and people this engaged create problems worth solving, from ticketing and wayfinding to content, health and grassroots participation.
The best partnerships trade access and data for early use of the product and a share of the upside, and rights holders with real insight into their fans have the most to trade. You get technology before your rivals do, and the startup gets the proof its next investors want to see. Being small doesn't rule you out, either: clubs, festivals and venues across the Gulf, Asia and Africa can play the same game, because a well-run pilot is worth more to a founder than a famous logo with no follow-through.
Is your organisation ready to host a pilot?
Run through these with your team to see whether you're ready to work with the region's startups.
Which of our problems would a startup actually want to take on?
What could we realistically offer a pilot in terms of data, access or audience?
Do we have a relationship with any of the region's accelerators?
Have we got a standard pilot agreement, or do we start from scratch every time?
Whose job is innovation here, really?
From 20,000 AED
Timeline
Findings within weeks
You'll keep hearing the Gulf's sports tech story told in billions, and those numbers are real. For most rights holders, though, the opportunity is smaller and much closer to home: one problem worth solving, one pilot and one partner who'll still be around next season.
If you'd like to be the organisation startups and investors ring first, it helps to have a clear plan for what you'll test and how you'll scale it. Our Innovate More Accelerator gives you that plan, from choosing the ideas to prototyping with fans to scaling what works.
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