The three sport business trends you need to watch in 2025

Every other prediction piece you’ll read, across any industry, will attempt to explain what the impact of AI will be on that sector over the coming year.

Most answers will be variations on Hemingway’s theme. AI will end up taking over. Gradually and then suddenly.

So, to avoid giving the likes of Chat GPT too much of a head start in achieving world domination, let’s ignore AI and do this the old fashioned way.

Googling “biggest sporting events 2025” tells us “The main events for this year are the 2025 Women’s Rugby World Cup in England and the 2025 Women’s Cricket World Cup in India”.

It says everything about the incredible growth of women’s sport over a few short years that the first question you find yourself asking is “what about the Women’s Euros?” rather than “What about the Lions tour or the Ryder Cup?”.

So, of the big three themes to look out for in the sport industry in 2025, this is a great place to start.

1. The biggest year yet for women’s sport?

Next year England are favourites to win a home Rugby World Cup and should be capable of progressing deep into cricket’s equivalent, as well as staging a robust defence of their European football crown.

England 2025 organisers announced last week that more than 220,000 tickets have already been sold for the tournament, 50 per cent more than for the previous women’s Rugby World Cup in New Zealand.

For rugby union in general, this sets up a fascinating contrast between its traditions and what could be a bright and diverse future.

A Red Roses side that has done much to attract a younger audience to the sport will kick-off its World Cup campaign against the United States just three weeks after the final test of the men’s British and Irish Lions tour, one of the last bastions of the sport’s amateur age.

From a sponsorship perspective, the women’s game is there for the taking. No brand has managed to dominate women’s rugby in the way that Barclays has in women’s football through its naming rights deal with the WSL and its commitment to women’s and girls’ football at grassroots level.

But opportunity knocks and, as far as the home nations are concerned, the World Cup could be a shoot-out between mobile phone brands, with Vodafone sponsoring Scotland, Ireland and Wales while England are backed by long-term partner O2.

Even from a Lions perspective, it is striking that much of the sponsorship noise is coming from Royal London insurance, whose bet on supporting a feasibility study into a possible women’s tour has paid off handsomely, with a tour to New Zealand in 2027 confirmed.

2. Can anyone overtake F1?

When Liberty Media bought Formula 1 from CVC Capital Partners in 2017, there was a serious job to be done to revitalise the popularity of the sport.

Six seasons of Netflix’s “helmets off” documentary series Drive to Survive later and the worldwide audience has grown significantly.

While the commercials of the sport could barely be described as being on the skids, a string of new, high-value deals with brands including LVMH, HP and even KitKat, as well as renewals with long-term partners such as Heineken, have added to the sense that the sport is accelerating away from the field.

But the momentum isn’t purely down to Netflix.

Liberty understands the importance of the US market to sponsors and broadcasters. A 24-race schedule includes no fewer than three Grands Prix stateside, and Miami and Las Vegas have become the blueprint for F1’s desire to be seen as an entertainment brand both on and off the track.

F1 is a perfect illustration of what we term Fancom. It understands and builds on the intersecting audience passions and interests that can build new communities of fans around the sport. By embracing fashion, music, celebrity and gaming in a way perhaps unmatched by any other sport outside of the NFL, it is growing a following far beyond petrolheads.

Next year also has Lewis Hamilton moving to Ferrari, a sold-out first ever all-team car launch at the O2 in London in February, and the prospect of a serious tilt at the title from McLaren, whether that be from Lando Norris or Oscar Piastri.

If that’s not enough, this time next year, we’ll be writing about a Cadillac rolling onto the grid powered by a Ferrari engine.

3. Disruption, disruption, disruption

In sport, the word disruption used to describe crowd trouble or player strikes. It’s now about striking where there’s a perceived weakness, disrupting convention, ostensibly to improve a sport.

Those perceived to be struggling for eyeballs, participants or investment have been under siege for some time. In the case of cricket this is as old as the 70s with World Series Cricket the OG disruptors. Then the Indian Premier League picked up the gauntlet to make players rich beyond Kerry Packer’s wildest dreams.

Golf is still working out the extent to which it has been disrupted, with the LIV-PGA Tour truce slowly morphing into a formal merger.

Rugby is merely the latest to be unsettled. A breakaway eight-team global franchise league is taking shape, with reported US and Middle East investment set to lure big names from the six nations and southern hemisphere.

But surely football is disruptor-proof? Super League? Seen off. Fifa’s Club World Cup? Ok, perhaps the global governing body itself doesn’t qualify as a disruptor of its own sport.

But there are elements of the game that are ripe for disruption, particularly as younger audiences decide they prefer individual players to teams and TikTok highlights to 90 minutes.

Enter one of the most-anticipated sporting launches for a while. Baller League promises a blend of traditional football royalty and some of the biggest social media personalities, thrown together in a six-a-side format intriguingly marketed as “the new old football”.

YouTube ‘veterans’ Sidemen and other social media luminaries will rub managerial shoulders with the likes of Gary Lineker, Luis Figo and John Terry.

For sports that are forever casting envious eyes at football, it could just be a clue as to the shape of things to come.

Because this is precisely the sort of disruption that appeals to sponsors and investors, who have just backed Baller League to the tune of $33m.

Neil Hopkins is global head of strategy at M&C Saatchi Sport and Entertainment.