Innovation
Why sport innovation programmes stall after demo day
Sam Cherry
Founder
,
2403 Group
8
minutes to read
KEY TAKEAWAY
Innovation programmes stall for structural reasons: they hang on one funder, nobody inside the organisation is waiting to buy what the pilots produce, and there's no rule for ending projects that aren't working. Sort out those three things and ideas start to ship.
Most sport innovation programmes peak on demo day. The room's full, the coffee's good, the slides are better still, and a sponsor's logo glows on the screen behind every pitch. Twelve months later the cohort has gone home, the sponsor has moved on and nothing new is running on match day. The best startups have watched this happen often enough to spot it early, and they quietly steer clear.
The odd thing is that almost every executive agrees innovation matters. Executives say it matters more than ever, yet very few organisations are actually set up to deliver it. The programmes that do ship tend to share a handful of design choices, and none of them is expensive. Any rights holder, from a national federation to a single venue, can borrow them.
3%
of companies qualify as 'innovation ready', while 83% of executives rank innovation a top-three priority
BCG, 2024
70%
of AO StartUps portfolio companies have gone on to secure commercial deals
Startup Daily, 2025
2 years
maximum trial period for a project in the FIFA Innovation Programme
FIFA, 2021
So why do programmes go quiet?
Ambition is rarely what's missing. BCG's 2024 innovation study found a record 83% of senior executives rank innovation among their organisation's top three priorities, while just 3% of companies qualify as 'innovation ready'. It's the second number I'd dwell on, because it shows the trouble starts at delivery. Gartner tells a similar story: only 48% of digital initiatives meet or exceed their business outcome targets.
In sport the pattern is familiar. A programme gets paid for by one sponsor or championed by one executive, but nobody inside is waiting to buy what it produces. Pilots drift along with no date by which they must prove themselves or stop. Then the sponsorship ends or the champion leaves, the programme goes dormant, and the best startups take their ideas elsewhere.
A pilot with no end date never has to prove anything.
Build it to outlast its first sponsor
Relying on a single funder is the quiet killer. If one sponsor pays for everything, the programme lives on that sponsor's renewal cycle, and if one executive owns it, it lasts as long as their tenure. The fix is to treat innovation like any other commercial product: give it several sources of funding, a budget line inside operations and a senior owner who reports results every quarter.
FIFA's model shows how to spread the cost. Applicants pay for their own trials, and a member association, competition organiser or club provides the test environment. FIFA sets the problem, the rules and the route to certification. Nobody carries the whole bill, so nobody can switch the programme off alone.
How FIFA and Tennis Australia made it stick
FIFA launched its Innovation Programme on 3 May 2021 with deliberately tight rules. Each project has to meet a concrete FIFA need with defined criteria and deliver measurable results within two years, unless FIFA grants an exceptional extension. It needs the backing of a member association, competition organiser or club, and projects that don't succeed are removed. Applicants bring a prototype, cover their own trial costs and agree that key results will be made public. Each rule forces a decision, and real insight into how fans used a pilot tells you which way to go.
Our team saw the effect from the inside. Across 10 priority areas, the programme cut the time from idea to implementation from more than four years to 24 months. I'd show that figure to anyone who thinks deadlines slow innovation down. FIFA relaunched the programme in February 2025 with a portal where organisations of any size can pitch. At the FIFA Club World Cup 2025, three organisations selected through that portal piloted fan-engagement technology.
Tennis Australia took a similar line with AO StartUps. Its first seven startups were each linked to a part of the business, from the National Academy to sustainability and media. That gives every pilot a home inside the organisation. And 70% of portfolio companies have gone on to secure commercial deals. Our team worked with a portfolio that grew to more than 40 startups and more than $10m in follow-on funding.
Worth pausing on
Think about the last three pilots your organisation ran. How many turned into a paid contract or a permanent part of how you work, and if you're not sure, who in the building would know?
Three Key Steps
Sort out the plumbing first, and the pitch day becomes the easy bit.
1
Find a buyer first
Ask each department head for one problem they'd pay to solve within a season, and only run challenges that have a named internal owner and a budget waiting for the result. AO StartUps linked each of its first startups to a specific part of the business. Do the same before you invite a single startup through the door.
2
Set gates and a hard deadline
Agree what success looks like before any pilot starts, and anchor it in fan behaviour you can measure. Then review at fixed gates: problem fit, live trial and commercial terms. Cap every trial as FIFA does at two years. When a project misses its criteria, remove it without drama. A clear no frees up time, money and goodwill for the next idea.
3
Share the cost and the results
Fund the programme from several places: operating budgets, partners, government grants and the startups themselves. FIFA asks applicants to cover their own trial costs. Then share what worked and what didn't. Visible results attract the next cohort, and they protect the programme when a sponsor or executive changes, because there's a track record people can point to.
A pilot with no end date never has to prove anything.
After the big event, who's still buying?
The Gulf has shown a real appetite for sports innovation. When Qatar SportsTech opened its first accelerator programme, it received more than 400 applications and selected 10 startups. By the end of its fourth cohort in 2021, 35 alumni companies had raised nearly $10m. Our team saw cohorts of 10 startups supported with grants of $15,000 to $40,000. That level of interest tells you the founders are out there, so the harder question is what happens to them afterwards.
Here the risk is the same as anywhere else, just sharper. Programmes built around one landmark event or one funder can lose momentum once the event has gone. A mega-event brings a burst of budget and attention, and it's the months after that test whether a programme has a reason to exist that doesn't depend on the next trophy. The region's busy calendar of tournaments, festivals and openings gives rights holders a long runway, but only if there are buyers inside clubs, leagues and venues who genuinely need the results.
For smaller rights holders in the Gulf, Asia and Africa, the lesson is cheaper still. You don't need a venture fund or a glossy demo day to make this work. What you need is a real problem, a pilot partner and a deadline.
What to ask before the next call for startups
Put these to your team before anyone books a venue for the next demo day.
Who here is actually waiting to buy what each pilot produces?
If our main funder pulled out tomorrow, would the programme survive?
What's the deadline for each trial, and what counts as success?
How many of our pilots turned into paid contracts in the last two years?
Are we telling anyone what we've learned?
From 20,000 AED
Timeline
Findings within weeks
Sport has never been short of good ideas. Where programmes stall, it's because nobody inside the organisation was waiting for the answer and nobody set a date to make a decision. Get those two things right, add some real fan intelligence, and you'll know which pilots have earned the next round of investment and which to stop.
If your programme has gone quiet, or never quite got started, the fix is structural and it doesn't have to take long. Our Innovate More Accelerator helps you pick the ideas worth testing, try them with fans and build the gates that move winners into everyday operations.
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