Sports has been on the brain. With the Knicks’ Game 2 win, the World Cup boosting leisure and hospitality hiring in May, and last weekend’s Sail Grand Prix in New York Harbor, how could it not?

Besides, despite the increasingly fractured media landscape we’re in, falling consumer sentiment, and the deepening K-shaped economy, sports viewership and fandom continue to fuel franchise values, ticket prices, and “innovation.” Why? Because The Product of Sport Is Basically Perfect.

It’s local and global (talk about TAM). It’s experiential (nosebleeds, courtside, sidewalks, elbows in your face at the bar) and tangible (the merch! pizza and beers). There’s real drama (“authenticity”!) that inspires and repels. And oh yeah — it’s the ultimate canvas for brand marketing — with the World Economic Forum and Oliver Wyman pointing out that it’s “one of the most trusted advertising channels” in a report released earlier this year.

If you’re looking for a “recession-proof” industry to join or partner with, sports is it.

🏁 The Signal: The sports economy generated $2.3 trillion in global revenues last year — the size of Canada’s entire economy, the 10th largest on the planet, per the report. Over the next 25 years, that pie is projected to nearly quadruple to $8.8 trillion, which would make it larger than any economy on earth except the U.S. and China — eclipsing Germany, Japan, and India.

▶️ The Play: Sports tourism, sports as an asset class (think ownership models, media and entertainment deals), the “mainstreaming” of women’s sport, and expansion across emerging countries are the four key drivers of future growth, according to the report.

And if you’re searching for a specific sport to tap into, consider getting in early on Sail Grand Prix 👇

Mike Buckley is CEO of the U.S. SailGP Team. A two-time world champion sailor, he’s also co-owner of a national team that competes in a fast-growing global sports league started by Oracle founder Larry Ellison and five-time America’s Cup winner Sir Russell Coutts.

Commonly referred to as “F1 on water,” SailGP involves identical high-tech catamarans racing one another at high speeds near shorelines in multiple events a year. Rival league the America’s Cup features one-on-one races between yachts with differing designs that take place every few years.

“It’s really the skill of the sailors and the quality of the athletes that will determine winner from loser,” Ellison said in a launch video in 2018, according to CNN.

Since then, the league has transitioned teams to private ownership and grown its fan base. Teams sold for between $5 million and $10 million during the first two seasons, and Coutts told Yahoo in late May that “the next teams are in the process of selling for $70 million.” Meanwhile, a November 2025 broadcast drew 3.47 million viewers in the U.S., making it the most-watched sailing race in U.S. history, per Sportico.

Macro Talk attended the U.S. SailGP Team Welcome Party last week thanks to our friend Sarah.

I chatted briefly with Buckley about his vision to break out of F1’s shadow and the state of being a sports fan in 2026:

Macro Talk: How do you want to position the sport, especially as there are so many comparisons to F1?

Buckley: I think we have a sport that can stand on its own two feet. It’s incredible that people are calling us “Formula 1 on the water” — that allows people that don’t know anything about SailGP to quickly put two and two together. But at the end of the day, we’re SailGP, we’re not Formula 1, we’re different.

Our race happens on the water, in boats, with a six‑person crew, co‑ed teams, nation versus nation. It’s just different. There are definitely comparisons, but we don’t want to put ourselves in a box.

What’s the best way to stand on your own two feet? What would that really require people to do — to divorce from this F1 analogy or to see themselves in the sport somehow?

In general, I don’t think it’s super healthy to try to be somebody else. We want to be our own people, our own property.

We need to innovate; we can’t be copying. We can learn from these super successful properties, and we should be constantly learning, but if we’re just following, we’re always going to be following.

What do you want to do differently? What have you learned?

I think the biggest thing is that our race happens on the water.

A huge portion of the population in the world lives near the water. The most powerful cities in the world are on the water. Our race is on the water, and we think we have a really exciting racing platform that people are going to come and have a hell of a time.

Last question, about the economy: I would say that you would play more in the top part of the K‑shaped economy. Would you agree that this sport is for people who are part of that top “K” of the economy? Who is your target audience?

I think sailing gets put in the elitism bucket — it always has — but sports in general are elite; they’re expensive.

Think about how expensive it is to go to a Knicks game with a family of four on the regular season and sit in the nosebleeds — it’s a $2,000 night. So sports are expensive.
We’re doing what we can to bring the prices down because we want to create a property that’s for the masses.

I think the criticism is fair, but I also think it can apply to just about any sport right now.

If you’re going to play basketball, sure, at first all you need is a ball and a hoop and a flat surface. But if you’re going to compete at the highest level, you’d better be in AAU, you’d better have NIL money, and on and on and on. So I think it applies to all sports, sadly.

Editor’s note: Macro Talk is reaching out to Buckley’s team for a longer conversation for the podcast to follow up on questions about bringing prices down and the growth of the sport, among other topics.

🏁 The Signal: Sports ticket prices rose more than twice as fast as the price of goods in the U.S. generally from 2000 to 2019, NYT reports, citing government data. Macro factors like income and population growth explain part of the trend, but dynamic pricing based on fan demand and lack of resale laws play large roles too. Meanwhile, families have been grappling with youth sports becoming more expensive, with average total costs growing 46% between 2019 and 2024.

▶️ The Play: ”Teams are businesses with a right to sell their product,” the NYT writes. But the risk of short-term thinking is alienating a larger part of the population — and potential future customers.

Rick Nelson, owner of Annapolis Sailing School, told Macro Talk in a separate conversation at the party the same night that he’s working to change the sport’s elitism perception too.

A former chief investment officer who managed pension funds, Nelson said he’s been learning to sail over the past 11 years and attributes recent interest in sailing in part to digital fatigue.

“It gives people a break from [their] phones,” he said. “You’re in the moment. You have to be in nature.”