This post is part of a series covering the performance focused SportTech companies. You can view the full interactive map with more than 50 startups here.

This landscape highlights how software, hardware and AI are reshaping the way athletes train, how coaches work, and how clubs operate.

Moneyball for Everyone: Data and AI Trends in SportTech

Here are six major trends that are shaping the performance SportTech market:

• Trend #1: Moneyball everywhere. Historically, only a few sports were highly data driven, mostly in the United States such as baseball, basketball and American football. This is now happening across almost every sport and at every level (both professional and amateur). The spread of computer vision and AI over the past few years has created an explosion in available data and in the analysis built on top of it.
• Trend #2: The convergence of pro and amateur sports. A consequence of the trend above, is that amateurs now have access to training methods, performance analysis and nutrition advice that were once limited to professionals. In the past, people copied the appearance of athletes (mainly through haircuts or shoes/apparels). Now they can copy their training plans and their nutrition as well (many athletes even sell their nutrition and training plan). The bar keeps rising even in amateur sports.
• Trend #3: Chasing the dream. With constant sport mediatization, more competitions, more games and an ever growing presence on social media, an increasing number of young amateurs want to become the next star athlete. I personally think that it also goes against the narrative that AI will replace every job. Athlete stars will remain and the dream of becoming one will continue to be there.
• Trend #4: From mainstream to niche sports. I could find AI powered mobile apps and smart wearables for almost every sport. From smart swimming goggles that display data in the pool to AI powered dart coaching and smart dart boards, the “technologization” of sport is reaching even the most obscure disciplines (I couldn’t find wearable specifically created for boules/petanque though 😅).
• Trend #5: The athlete investor. Many of the companies in this landscape have athletes as investors and an increasing number of athletes are creating their own investment vehicles. I believe that they are one of the reasons why so many sport tech startups receive funding. Kind of “recycling” the millions that they receive into sport related investment opportunities.
• Trend #6: The commoditization of personal trainers. With AI capable of creating personalised training plans, nutrition guidance and movement analysis, I’m curious to see what will happen to personal trainers, because their knowledge is basically getting commoditized. The job will probably still exist, but I have the feeling that it will concentrate around a group of star coaches who can manage hundreds or even thousands of clients through AI and computer vision and a myriad of smaller ones struggling to live out of it. I may be wrong on this one, but I have the impression that we’re going toward a “Youtube/Twitch” model where a few streamers/content creators make the majority of revenue, and the vast majority stay “micro creators”.