The artificial intelligence (AI) opportunity in sports is real and already showing up across fan engagement, monetization, performance and enterprise operations, with early movers establishing measurable advantages.
The organizations capturing the most value are treating AI as a strategic priority, not a collection of isolated pilots, connecting every initiative to a clear business outcome with named ownership and discipline around return on investment (ROI).
Data is the foundation everything else is built on. Having the right data across commercial, operational, and performance sources, structured for AI use, is what separates programs that scale from ones that stall.
The hardest and most important work is the operating model change. The organizations pulling ahead are rethinking their metrics, roles and decision rights from the ground up, not just adopting new tools.
Professional sports organizations hold one of the richest concentrations of real-time data in any industry, and AI is turning that data into competitive and commercial advantages. Leagues and teams are already using AI to personalize fan content and enhance the fan experience, and more advanced organizations are using AI for on-field performance and organizational optimization.
AI is the latest in a succession of technology waves that have reshaped how businesses operate, from the internet to ecommerce to the app economy. The numbers reflect the moment: Global investment in AI readiness is expected to reach $200 billion in the coming year.
For sports organizations, it’s still early in the season when it comes to the “AI delta,” but the standings are starting to take shape. Teams investing in a holistic AI strategy are putting more wins on the board across fan engagement, revenue and performance, while others risk falling behind as the gap compounds (see Figure 1).
Figure 1
Enterprise value scenarios
The gap is already widening. Organizations that build a holistic approach are unlocking real enterprise value, while those focused only on tactical efficiencies are capturing a fraction of the upside and those sitting out are watching it erode. For executives and investors, the decisions made now will define competitive position for years to come.
For the organizations choosing to lead, the value is already showing up in four distinct pools, each with its own return profile: fan engagement, monetization of data and content rights, on-field performance, and enterprise operations (see Figure 2).
Figure 2
Four repeatable value pools for AI in sports
Each value pool has produced its own set of early movers, with distinct approaches and measurable results.
For most of its history, the professional sports experience has been a mass-market event designed for the average fan. AI is changing that, giving organizations the ability to generate personalized content automatically and deliver it at an individual scale.
The results are already visible across the industry. The NBA now produces tens of thousands of individualized highlight clips per season using AI-powered video understanding. Wimbledon launched a “Live Likelihood to Win” feature giving fans continuous, match-specific insights in real time. Volleyball World uses AI-driven data capture and predictive modeling to power in-play analytics and personalized betting experiences.
Image 1: Wimbledon’s AI fan experience
Source: AI Business
For a deeper look at how fans are engaging with sports content, see our latest Sports Fan Survey.
For many sports organizations, data and content have long been underutilized assets. AI is turning proprietary libraries and real-time streams into recurring revenue engines across multiple channels.
While early monetization efforts often focused on tactical wins like dynamic pricing, the current frontier is the commercialization of proprietary data and content rights. WWE used AI to tag decades of archived video, transforming a static library into a discoverable and licensable digital product. Sportradar monitors global betting markets in real time, turning integrity protection into a regulated, data-driven revenue stream.
The results can be striking. For example, the University of South Carolina projected a 40% increase in ticket revenue after adopting AI-driven dynamic pricing for its women’s basketball program.
On-field decisions have long relied on human intuition. AI now connects tracking data, video and sensor inputs to create a more empirical foundation for athlete management.
While baseline automation has already delivered efficiency (like Sevilla FC’s AI scouting tool that eliminates hundreds of hours of manual short-listing), the most compelling frontier involves predictive thinking partners that inform strategy and safety. The NFL’s Digital Athlete program aggregates league-wide data to predict injury risk and inform training loads and rule design. Similarly, Williams F1 has integrated Claude as an official “Thinking Partner” across race strategy and car development.
For organizations managing multi-venue and multi-season complexity, AI is delivering meaningful operating leverage enterprise-wide by automating back-office functions where small efficiencies compound quickly.
The MLB, for example, uses AI-based optimization to generate season schedules that must balance competitive fairness, broadcast priorities and venue constraints. In team operations, the Denver Broncos have sharpened sales forecasting and optimized concession planning through AI-driven insights. Similarly, Chelsea FC is integrating AI agents across club operations to improve the fan experience at scale.
Across L.E.K. Consulting’s work with sports and live entertainment organizations, four pillars define whether AI investments deliver championship-level returns or quietly fade after the first season. Success requires a fundamental reimagining of the organization, including a ground-up rebuild of roles, tasks and the metrics used to measure victory.
These pillars give leadership a practical framework for moving from isolated pilots to organization-wide transformation (see Figure 3).
AI programs without clear ownership produce noise instead of measurable progress. The organizations building durable value set their game plan before deployment, connecting every initiative to a measurable business outcome with a named owner. Bringing finance leadership in early is what makes that accountability real, giving the program a line of sight to ROI from the start and a track record to learn from.
Building AI capability on fragmented or incomplete data is like calling the game from the wrong end of the stadium. The foundation that matters is not just clean data but the right data — spanning tracking, telemetry, and commercial and operational sources — structured in a way that AI systems can actually use. Getting that right is unglamorous work, but it’s what separates programs that perform under pressure from ones that stall when it matters.
The organizations earning durable returns from AI have clear guardrails around how models are used, who can see what, and how compliance and reputational risks are managed. Governance established early builds the investor trust that lets programs scale. Without it, one high-profile error can set the whole program back a season.
Even the best playbook fails without coaches and players who know how to run it. The organizations getting the most from AI redefine the metrics that drive decisions; then they rebuild roles, tasks and workflows around those new priorities. In practice, that means asking hard questions: Which jobs change? Which decisions are made by models versus people? And which historical measures of performance no longer reflect how value is created?
Establishing this foundation creates the necessary room for leadership to ask the bigger questions that define a successful AI strategy:
L.E.K.’s Sports and Live Entertainment practice has extensive experience supporting clients globally across strategy, value creation and M&A, working with leagues, teams, media partners, venue operators, service providers and investors. L.E.K. brings together deep sector expertise in fan engagement, media rights, live events and data strategy with firmwide capabilities in AI and advanced analytics.
To discuss how AI can create value for your organization, contact us.
L.E.K. Consulting is a registered trademark of L.E.K. Consulting. All other products and brands mentioned in this document are properties of their respective owners. © 2026 L.E.K. Consulting
Consolidation in U.K. wealth management has made scale accessible, but integration remains the real test of value. For our client, a leading U.K. independent wealth management consolidator, the challenge was not identifying an attractive acquisition but determining whether it could be combined into a single platform without eroding the very economics that made it compelling.
The difficulty lay in the trade-off between value and stability. Delivering synergies required changes to pricing, proposition and operating models, yet those same changes risked destabilizing advisor relationships and client outcomes. A relatively small group of advisors accounted for a disproportionate share of value, making downside risk highly concentrated and difficult to manage.
At stake was the credibility of the investment itself. Without a clear view of how value would be realized — and where it could be lost — the deal remained a strategic idea rather than an executable opportunity.
The focus was to cut through headline synergies and establish what would actually hold together under real-world conditions.
This required building a clear, integrated view of how value would be created across the combined business — not just in aggregate, but at the levels of advisors, client segments and operating decisions. The critical challenge was understanding how commercial ambition translated into operational reality: how pricing changes would affect client behavior, how proposition shifts would influence advisor retention and where the economics depended on assumptions that might not hold under integration.
The central part of the work was isolating where risk was genuinely concentrated. Advisor behavior was not uniform — value sat in specific books, tenure profiles and client relationships — and required targeted, not generic, mitigation. This distinction between broad risk and concentrated exposure was essential in determining what value was durable.
In parallel, we defined what a scalable end state needed to look like in practice. This meant aligning proposition, pricing and operating models into a structure that could support growth without creating friction across the front, middle and back offices. The integration pathway was then shaped around this reality, sequencing change in a way that preserved stability while still capturing value at pace.
Solving this problem moved the client from conviction to clarity:
With L.E.K. Consulting’s support, the client moved from a high-level strategic rationale to a fully validated, execution-ready value creation plan — providing investors with confidence that the transaction could deliver both near-term synergies and long-term platform scalability in a rapidly evolving wealth management market.
Note: Content built using enterprise AI tools and reviewed using the CEO method. The intellectual property created is based on sanitized final presentation materials. We recommend that teams consult with Marketing/Legal when providing for external consumption.
L.E.K. Consulting is a registered trademark of L.E.K. Consulting. All other products and brands mentioned in this document are properties of their respective owners. © 2026 L.E.K. Consulting
A leading U.K. financial planning and wealth management business was operating in a sector where regulatory scrutiny and rising client expectations are reshaping how value is defined — not just in outcomes but also in how transparently and consistently value is delivered.
Despite having achieved scale, the business was struggling to translate that scale into consistent commercial performance. Proposition and pricing had evolved incrementally through growth and acquisition, creating fragmentation across client segments and limiting visibility into where value was truly being created — and where it was being lost.
The core challenge was not designing a better pricing structure in isolation but realigning the entire commercial model. Pricing, proposition and cost to serve were interconnected yet misaligned, making it difficult to balance client value, regulatory requirements and profitability. Without addressing this, the business risked leaving significant value unrealized within its existing client base while increasing operational complexity over time.
The focus was to establish a clear, integrated view of how value was created across the business and where it could be improved.
This required moving beyond existing structures to understand how different client segments were served, how services translated into cost and how pricing reflected both value delivered and operational reality. A key challenge was reconciling multiple perspectives — customer expectations, cost to serve, competitive positioning and regulatory requirements — into a single coherent framework.
By linking service delivery to cost and aligning this with customer willingness to pay, we identified where the existing model was structurally misaligned. This enabled a more consistent pricing architecture across the value chain while also highlighting where proposition complexity was driving inefficiency rather than differentiation.
At the same time, the work surfaced additional sources of value, particularly through cross-selling across financial planning, investment management and funds as well as opportunities to optimize the fund management operating model. These insights were brought together into a clear, sequenced pathway for implementation, ensuring that value could be realized in a controlled and practical manner.
Addressing this challenge gave the client a clear, actionable view of how to unlock value from its existing business. It created transparency regarding where value was being generated across client segments and propositions, enabling more targeted and confident commercial decisions.
By aligning pricing, proposition and cost to serve into a coherent structure, the business was able to balance client value, regulatory requirements and profitability more effectively. At the same time, it sharpened its growth engine through clearer cross-sell pathways and improved alignment across financial planning, investment management and funds.
Simplifying the proposition reduced operational complexity and improved scalability, while a defined implementation roadmap ensured that these changes could be delivered in a controlled and practical manner.
With L.E.K. Consulting’s support, the client established a clear understanding of the commercial opportunity within its existing business and defined a structured approach to deliver value through proposition, pricing and operating model improvements.
Note: Content built using enterprise AI tools and reviewed using the CEO method. The intellectual property created is based on sanitized final presentation materials. We recommend that teams consult with Marketing/Legal when providing for external consumption.
L.E.K. Consulting is a registered trademark of L.E.K. Consulting. All other products and brands mentioned in this document are properties of their respective owners. © 2026 L.E.K. Consulting
The mobility landscape is entering a more complex and fragmented phase, shaped by diverging consumer demand, new competitive entrants and the gradual scaling of autonomous technologies. Drawing on insights from L.E.K. Consulting’s 10th Annual Global Mobility Study, this webinar brings together a decade of proprietary research to assess how mobility preferences, technology adoption and market dynamics have evolved, and what the latest data signals for the future.
Hear from L.E.K. Consulting, Vision Mobility and CuriosityCX as they examine key developments, including regional divergence in electric vehicle demand, the growing influence of Chinese OEMs and early progress in robotaxi deployment. The session also explores how these trends are shaping future mobility models and investment priorities.
Complete the form to access the recording now to explore the full set of insights.
Large-volume drug delivery is a key focus area for device innovation across autoinjectors, on-body delivery systems and tethered devices.
Demand is likely to increase driven by biopharmas’ pursuit of dosing improvements and Medicare Price Negotiation incentives.
Still, device innovators face challenges in driving adoption and identifying potential customers.
Device innovators need to consider strategies for enabling fit-for-purpose technology and building biopharma credibility.
Most subcutaneous and intramuscular injectable drug volumes are relatively small. These drugs are well served by established delivery devices: prefilled syringes, pens and autoinjectors. However, if a high volume of drug needs to be injected, these relatively standard technologies become less relevant.
Large-volume drug delivery, typically defined as subcutaneous or intramuscular injection volumes above roughly 3 mL, is a key focus for device innovation. With more drugs falling into this category and more devices in development, the field is poised for future evolution. Innovative delivery devices can be strategic enablers, making such drugs more commercially viable, yet they face several hurdles.
In this edition of Executive Insights, L.E.K. Consulting examines large-volume drug delivery, the forces driving market demand and the challenges device innovators must overcome to win.
Drug delivery volume is a critical factor for selection of a compatible drug delivery device (see Figure 1). As volume increases, the associated delivery device typically becomes less common and more specialized.
Figure 1
Applicability of large-volume drug delivery devices, by volume and class
Traditional prefilled syringes (PFS) and autoinjectors are less common above 3 mL, reflecting the physical space limitations and the Food and Drug Administration’s 15-second guidance for autoinjectors. More innovative autoinjectors are in development that may deliver up to 10 mL, with some models using gas rather than spring power to avoid pressure limitations.
On-body delivery systems are wearable devices that allow extended delivery timelines (minutes, hours), without restricting patient mobility. Manufacturers of such devices include Enable Injections, West, Ypsomed and BD. These devices often come with a novelty factor but are limited by the weight of the drug volume.
Tethered devices, typically pump systems, offer consistent delivery of large volumes over extended timelines though often with greater constraints on patient mobility. Manufacturers include Koru and EMED.
Importantly, for large-volume drugs, an innovative delivery device is not required. Multiple simpler devices (e.g., prefilled syringe) could be used. Alternatively, a large volume could be manually pushed by syringe, although this requires training and a greater time commitment.
In practice, device selection is shaped not only by volume but also by the interplay between viscosity, administration time, user/administration setting, cost, risk and the strategic value of convenience. No single technology is optimal across all volumes and use cases.
Though the number of approved large-volume drugs remains relatively limited today (around 30 in 2023), it has grown steadily and there are additional assets in the pipeline. As more reach the market, the classes of molecules are expected to diversify. For example, most approved drugs greater than 10 mL are subcutaneous immunoglobulins, with few of that class in the late-stage pipeline. Not all leverage an innovative delivery system today, but they have that potential.
Several trends are likely to support future demand for large-volume delivery solutions:
Countervailing forces remain. Large-volume drug delivery may see competition from formulation technologies that aim to reduce injection volume (e.g., Elektrofi). Additionally, novel oral therapies may erode demand in historically injectable markets (e.g., diabetes/obesity).
Growth will be shaped by molecular complexity, commercial incentives and new enabling technologies.
Despite innovation in the delivery device field, drug manufacturers tend to be highly risk averse. When possible, manufacturers often opt for basic packaging or devices (e.g., vial, prefilled syringe) or even two smaller injections. Novel devices may carry development risk. Less commonly leveraged devices may carry supply chain risk. Added devices can increase the risk of malfunction. On top of the risks, innovative devices typically increase the cost of goods sold over more commoditized options, placing pressure on margins. Often, innovative drug delivery device selection is driven by the product’s requirements (e.g., volume, viscosity) or market conditions (e.g., competitive differentiation, life-cycle management benefits).
When pursuing a large-volume drug delivery device, drug manufacturers are often focused on the device manufacturer’s track record, which provides confidence in manufacturing capabilities and product performance. As a result, proven manufacturing and performance can become a meaningful barrier to entry for newer device players.
For large-volume device players, identifying potential customer targets can also be a challenge (see Figure 2). Which drugs will be large volume? When developing a new drug, manufacturers typically evaluate delivery device options early in clinical development, alongside other dosing contingency options (e.g., reformulations, regimen changes). At this stage, the drug volume is not yet finalized or publicly disclosed. Life-cycle management decisions are less consistent and can be driven by competitive positioning and exclusivity considerations several years postlaunch. Which marketed intravenous drugs might reformulate to a large-volume subcutaneous injection? Which marketed large-volume subcutaneous injections would benefit from a new device?
Figure 2
Drug delivery device evaluation timeline
Large-volume drug delivery technology is expanding and improving alongside advances in formulation technology
Coordinate with formulation teams to ensure the full suite of options is being considered when optimizing drug product features
Inflation Reduction Act Medicare Drug Price Negotiation and Most-Favored-Nation policies may impact drug formulation, device and partnering decisions
Coordinate with regulatory and commercial teams to map the implications of these decisions on product life-cycle and pricing strategies
Many markets are getting more crowded, with a greater breadth of route of administration and dosing options across care settings
Coordinate with commercial teams to ensure the drug’s features (beyond efficacy and safety) resonate with the target stakeholders enhancing differentiation
With more growth in large-volume drug development and the market’s inherent challenges, device innovators should consider:
The emerging class of device leaders will balance fit-for-purpose technology with pharma credibility.
With strength across Biopharma and MedTech practices, we are uniquely positioned to help drug delivery device companies navigate opportunities and challenges in this evolving space.
For more information, please contact us.
L.E.K. Consulting is a registered trademark of L.E.K. Consulting LLC. All other products and brands mentioned in this document are properties of their respective owners. © 2026 L.E.K. Consulting LLC
Australia’s slowing productivity growth has become a constraint on real wages, service quality, fiscal sustainability and national competitiveness. At the same time, structural pressures such as ageing, higher expectations of service responsiveness and the rising complexity of regulation and security are driving sustained demand for public services. The uncomfortable reality is that Australia is trying to solve a productivity problem while its economic ‘centre of gravity’ continues to tilt towards lower-measured productivity sectors, including a growing public footprint in both spending and employment.
The question for Australia is not whether the government should provide essential services but how it should organise, finance and deliver them in a way that lifts productivity rather than further contributes to the issue.
A practical, underused answer is to shift more deliberately towards ‘government as broker’. This shift emphasises the government’s role as the designer of service systems, the setter of standards and the holder of accountability while leveraging private operators and private capital where they can deliver equal or better outcomes at lower whole-of-life cost.
Private financing is not new. Governments across the country have selectively used private capital in the delivery of infrastructure – most notably in transport, where there are predictable revenues (e.g. toll roads) and some degree of risk can be transferred. Likewise, investors are attracted to long-life assets that are predictable and stable. Most recently, the Department of Defence, through the National Defence Strategy, declared that greater private-sector involvement in defence would be a win-win for the government and investors.
Across many functions, the government still behaves like an owner-operator – It owns assets, operates them, funds capex directly and carries much of the delivery risk – even where the activity is contestable, scalable and separable. Over time, that tends to produce three predictable outcomes:
In a low-productivity environment, these issues compound quickly, as the economy needs more output per each dollar and hour and the state needs more services per each dollar and hour. A broker model directly targets that gap.
In a broker model, the government retains core sovereign responsibilities such as policy setting, stewardship, access and equity objectives, and safety and security standards and restructures delivery through three levers:
The concept is less about privatisation and more about allocating ownership, operating responsibility and capital to the parties best placed to manage them, while the government tightens its grip on outcomes and service integrity.
Exhibit 1
The Broker Model
A broker model can lift national productivity through five channels:
The opportunities are greatest where governments are sitting on asset portfolios with latent commercial and operational value and where underinvestment risks becoming a permanent drag on service outcomes and economic efficiency.
Australia already understands PPPs in transport and some social infrastructure. The next wave is likely to come from a broader pipeline of separable bundles, such as:
The objective is to bundle assets to achieve investable scale, standardise contracting and build a repeatable programme rather than one-off deals.
Australia’s productivity challenge will not be solved by a single reform lever, but a broker model is attractive for the government because it is actionable, scalable and aligned with the realities of fiscal pressure and rising service demand. The path forward is to identify a pipeline of carve-out and concession candidates, bundle them for scale and execute with a strong commissioning and assurance model.
Australia has examples that show this can work in specialist infrastructure such as broadcast transmission as well as international precedents that show how to apply the same logic to modern digital utilities, including data centre capacity and hosting. The opportunity is to apply the approach more broadly – redeploy capital, professionalise operations and lift the productivity of service delivery across the public domain. Brokering capital through repeatable concession/PPP programmes can mobilise private financing and operating capability while allowing the government to redeploy scarce public capital into genuinely non-contestable priorities.
Broadcast transmission is a classic utility layer with high fixed costs, specialist engineering capability, strong economies of scale and natural multi-tenant economics.
The commonwealth created a legislative pathway for the transfer/sale of national broadcast transmission assets through the National Transmission Network Sale Act 1998. Over time, the market evolved towards specialist private ownership and operation, with BAI Communications (formerly Broadcast Australia) now operating a large national footprint of transmission sites and providing services to major broadcasters.
Two features make this a useful template for today’s productivity discussion:
Hence, Australia has already demonstrated the feasibility of carving out a non-core but essential infrastructure layer in a structure that supports professionalised operations and investment discipline.
Digital infrastructure is where the broker model can deliver outsized gains. A good reference point is the UK’s Crown Hosting initiative.
In 2015, the UK government established Crown Hosting Data Centres as a joint venture with Ark Data Centres to provide data centre capacity for government workloads that were not yet suited to the public cloud. The objective was to break the pattern of departments buying and renewing hosting in isolation, often on subscale, long-duration, difficult-to-exit contracts. The model sought to aggregate demand, industrialise pricing and service levels, and allow the government to transition legacy workloads in a structured way rather than as a series of bespoke renegotiations.
Australia’s own trajectory points in a similar direction. One strand is the growth of sovereign and high-assurance private data centre capacity serving the government. For example, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s partnership with Canberra Data Centres was framed explicitly as an uplift in information and communications technology capability and modernisation.
Health registries are a prime example of ‘digital utility’ infrastructure. They sit behind essential public programs, combining data aggregation, workflow orchestration, provider interfaces and reporting at national scale. Australia’s National Cancer Screening Register (NCSR) illustrates the productivity and service upside of treating registries as shared infrastructure rather than fragmented, jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction systems.
In 2016, the Australian Government awarded Telstra Health the contract to implement and operate the NCSR, supporting the National Cervical Screening Program and the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program. The platform consolidated multiple legacy registers into a single national participant record and introduced more standardised digital channels for providers to access and submit screening information. The consolidation reduces duplication, scale supports stronger operating discipline and continuous improvement, and government can focus on stewardship, standards and assurance while a specialist operator runs the service under enforceable performance and privacy requirements.
L.E.K. Consulting is a registered trademark of L.E.K. Consulting LLC. All other products and brands mentioned in this document are properties of their respective owners. © 2026 L.E.K. Consulting LLC
Asia’s pharmaceutical markets are large, fast-growing and increasingly strategic for global pharma and biotech. At the same time, they remain deeply fragmented, spanning mature, publicly funded systems alongside emerging markets that are still heavily out of pocket. This diversity creates opportunity but also makes scaling across the region complex and resource intensive.
Download the full white paper: “Going Beyond Distribution: Commercialization Platforms Reshaping How Pharma Scales in Asia.”
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