FIFA are looking for investors into the World Cup…

Hardly a new trend though. Have you noticed the massive influx of money into football?

£100m players were unthinkable a decade ago. Now they’re becoming fairly normal.

Why?

Here’s a thought.

I wonder whether some investors are looking beyond football and betting on what the world looks like if AI continues to automate more work.

If people eventually have more free time, where will they spend it?

Sport and leisure seem like a pretty good bet.

AI has been better than humans at chess for decades, but nobody wants to watch AI vs AI.

At the same time, chess is more popular than ever.

The value isn’t in the AI playing the game. It’s in humans playing, watching, competing and belonging.

If work becomes a smaller part of our identity, perhaps sport fills more of that gap.

Maybe that’s why we’re seeing so much investment, not just in football, but in:

• Entertainment

• Sport

• Experiences

• Community

These are all things that become relatively more valuable in a world with abundant AI.

That’s why it doesn’t surprise me that investors have been piling into football, and why organisations like FIFA have become such valuable opportunities. They sit at the centre of something AI can’t replace: people wanting to watch, compete, belong and be entertained.

It’s another example of following incentives.

One other thought.

People often point out that FIFA is a non-profit, as though that means it can’t become enormously powerful or influential.

So was OpenAI. 🤣

Legal structure tells you very little.

Incentives tell you almost everything.