While the venture capital firm had been around for about 25 years, KB Partners only recently began to focus on the intersection of sports and tech. For Ahern, that means everything from how athletes perform to how fans experience the game.
“I think people are looking for a much deeper level of engagement, much deeper level of interactivity that they’re getting from other parts of their life,” he said.
Just as Netflix now sees its biggest competition coming not from other streaming services, but from wildly popular global games like “Fortnite,” Ahern said live sports has more to worry about than competing with other channels. One of the ways to turn fans’ passive experience into something more interactive is by allowing them to bet on games, he added.
But there are major hurdles, including establishing a framework for betting at the federal level and reducing video stream latency.
“There are some states that just won’t do it because of its moral status in their eyes and others, where it’s like, ‘Why wouldn’t we do this? This is the perfect way to generate more revenue, and people are doing it anyway’,” said Ahern.
Outside of betting, Ahern does think there’s other ways to gamify fans’ live sports experience. Social watch parties are another way technology can help create a social experience much like the one that exists for fans of video games.
Ahern thinks there’s plenty to learn from esports, which has introduced audiences to a deeper level of engagement and interactivity. In the age of streamers and influencers, Ahern sees potential for athletes to interact directly with their fans–almost as influencers have done in the ecommerce world.
“People think, ‘If it’s right for LeBron James, it’s right for me,'” said Ahern.
One-to-one fan interaction may be far off, but Ahern thinks fans are ready to have a deeper connection with their icons beyond watching them on a screen.
dot.LA Engagement Fellow Joshua Letona contributed to this post.
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