Global sports media rights are roughly USD 58 billion in 2025, with a clear path toward USD 78 billion by 2030 as the only true “must‑have” content left in TV and video.

In the US, sports rights spend has more than doubled since 2015, taking sport’s share of TV revenues from 8% to a projected 18% by 2030, driven by mega‑deals for the NFL, NBA and a handful of global properties.

The story beneath the headline is concentration: a small group of territories and five or so elite properties capture a growing share of global rights value, raising both opportunity and polarisation risk for everyone else.

Streaming platforms now account for roughly one‑fifth of global sports rights spend, with specialist players like DAZN and generalists like Netflix, Disney/ESPN, YouTube TV and Amazon all treating live rights as customer acquisition and retention tools.

One playoff game, one Super Bowl, one WWE or NFL window is enough to move millions of subscribers, which is why rights inflation in streaming is underpinned by real unit economics, not just hype.

Women’s sport has crossed the USD 1 billion revenue line and is growing at a rate that far exceeds mature men’s leagues and the wider sponsorship market.

Viewership and engagement are already there, from Paris 2024 to the WNBA and women’s cricket, but media rights and sponsorship still price in a “discount” that creates classic growth‑equity upside.

Sponsorship in women’s properties is growing at roughly 1.5x the pace of men’s, with the majority of brands reporting that ROI meets or beats expectations.

More than 300 stadium projects are active worldwide, with almost half in North America and Europe and a global pipeline approaching USD 190 billion.

The model is shifting from single‑use buildings to full districts: stadiums wrapped in hotels, residential, retail and entertainment that generate 365‑day cash flows.

Case studies like Toronto’s ballpark hotel and Kansas City Current’s purpose‑built women’s stadium show how integrated assets can swing revenues by tens of millions and anchor billion‑dollar mixed‑use plays.

Women’s sport behaves like growth equity: high CAGR, small base, meaningful re‑rating upside.

Stadium districts behave like yield / infrastructure: long‑duration, inflation‑linked, diversified cash flows that appeal to pension funds, endowments and sovereigns.

Media rights behave like IP / optionality: scalable contracts with digital hooks that can reprice a franchise or league in a single rights cycle.

The most interesting plays are the ones that bundle all three – team, venue and media, into one vertically integrated thesis.

For large institutional funds, the paper lays out concrete entry points across women’s funds, stadium and district platforms, and media rights / streaming structures, with target IRR ranges and hold periods.

For family offices and HNWIs, it highlights direct club and franchise opportunities, stadium co‑investments and content/IP plays around women’s and emerging leagues.

For leagues and clubs, it gets tactical: what a USD 2–5m facility upgrade can unlock in rights and sponsorship uplift, how to structure media splits across linear, streaming and DTC, and how to incubate or acquire women’s franchises to build genuine growth pipelines.