This Sport Will Take Over

Ah, the holidays are over… Need some midweek motivation? Well, we got you. The Sports Road - Your hub for the very best Sport and Tech has to offer. Enjoy!

Here's what we got for ya today:

• Time to Takeover

• Shaq is NOT Sold

• Ah, Chelsea

• Life After The Top

Most valuable public market sports teams

Let's get into it!

Drone Racing - Welcome to The Big Leagues

Racing is fun. Simply put, that’s the truth. 

But really, whether you’re a kid looking to have some fun or a professional athlete, there’s something about seeing two things race which is just enticing.

You’ve heard about F1, track events, and biking, but now there's a new craze taking over… Drone Racing!

Being driven forward by the Drone Racing League (DRL), last weekend saw DRL Algorand World Championship Race Finals. The twist?

Consistent with the Sport’s vision of appealing to younger fans, the broadcast was played live on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Tiktok, and Twitch 🤯

Additionally, the company announced the creation of The DRL Metaverse Marathon - a two day marathon showing the season in its entirety using their very own Metaverse platform. 

In classic fashion, this is the first time any Sport has streamed an entire season in the Metaverse. 

Developed by AI and Metaverse company Meetkai, the marathon will display thirteen different levels of real-life and Esports racing.

Placing an extended focus on the younger generation could be the move… We’ve seen companies like F1 rapidly grow their fan bases by using the impacts of social media to good effect.  

With that in mind, don’t be surprised if the next big thing in Sport is Drone Racing… 

Now This Could be Interesting…

AI - It’s a love/hate relationship… So with that, let’s talk about Shaquile O’Neal. 

Yeah, we know. It’ll all make sense soon enough. Trust us 😅

Having a superb NBA career stretching across 19 seasons, winning 4 championships, Shaq is well regarded as one of the best.

Despite that, many claim most of his embarrassment of riches were amassed after his playing career…

Outside of his work as an analyst, Shaq has shown himself to be a very shrewd businessman. Determined not to fall into the statistic as one of the 65% of NBA players that broke after retirement, Shaq claims he had to learn about financial literacy. And learn he did!

In fact, Shaquille O’Neal now owns over 100 companies 🤯🤯🤯Investing early in companies such as Apple and Google, it’s fair to say that the former Laker knows what he’s talking about. Soooo, what’s he talking about?

AI. He’s talking about AI. Come on guys, what else?

Interestingly, unlike our usual chats about AI, this isn’t as pleasant. In simpler terms, Shaq is saying that while AI can be useful, creating a dependency on it is actually a big negative.

And hey, what he’s saying could be true… We’ve touched upon it before, but AI in Sport isn’t all sunshine and roses. 

With disadvantages related to both player and fan experience, it’s important to remember that questions over its implementation do still exist…

What do you think? 

Time to do Something Else

Here at The Sports Road, we seem to have spoken about two things a lot – AI and Chelsea. 

But it’s for good reason. There’s simply always something new. With this partnership, we now get to speak about both 😍😍😍

Look, recently Chelsea have invested SERIOUS money into their playing squad. Let’s just say it hasn’t worked out…

So with that, it’s time for a change. Time to invest into the club's HUGE fan base. 

This week, Chelsea announced a partnership with Tech company, Tempus Ex Machina. This is what we can expect:

• Chelsea will use the company’s ‘Fusionfeed’ technology on the club’s app, digital and, stadium, and sponsor activations

• The technology will also be used as a tool to improve coaching, training, and player safety

• This will all be powered using AI, machine learning, and data science

Aiming to create new interactive experiences, fan engagement is at the forefront of developers minds.

The Next Chapter

We just spoke about what life for an athlete can look like after retirement, and the reality is it can go one of a few ways.

But like Shaq showed us, it really can go super well or… not as well. 

Recently though, we’ve seen a new trend – one which, funnily enough, heavily relates to the digital world. Not really what you’d expect from retirement 😅 

What is it, you ask? YOUTUBE!

Popularised by Ben Foster, a former Premier League Goalkeeper, the trend of offering behind-the-scenes insight is now travelling across Sport and being used by Basketballers to MMA Fighters.

But back to The Cycling GK. This weekend saw an absolutely outstanding ripple effect from the shot-stoppers Youtube career

Amassing over a million subscribers, a few weeks ago Foster was convinced out of retirement to play for Ryan Reynolds’ Non-league side, Wrexham. SOMEONE PLEASE MAKE IT MAKE SENSE. PLEASE!!!!

What ensued this week was one of the greatest games of Football ever.

Both coming into the game on 100 points with the league only allowing one automatic promotion place, this game probably had the biggest title ramifications in Europe. This is how it went down:

45+4' Wrexham 0-1 Notts County

48' Wrexham 1-1 Notts County

70' Wrexham 2-1 Notts County

75' Wrexham 2-2 Notts County

78' Wrexham 3-2 Notts County

90+7' Ben Foster penalty save!

Now that is seriously good content…

What a friggin legend! 😂

 Quick bites

• Here we go again: Man United to enter third round of bidding

• Cricket: Prep for the Ashes!

• WHAT: Life in a Two Team League

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Chat to ya on Friday! ☮️