Alexis Ohanian on sports as the ultimate anti-AI bet, live events boom, and the dark side of sports betting

Alexis Ohanian on live sports, collectibles, and the dark side of betting

Alexis Ohanian's investment thesis has a simple spine: bet on what AI cannot replace. Two and a half years ago, at Cannes Lions, he called sports "the ultimate anti-AI bet." JPMorgan Chase made the same argument on stage two weeks ago.

The logic is straightforward. AI can generate a pixel-perfect highlight of Mbappé scoring a goal, but it means nothing "because it never actually happened." Human experience is what makes live sport valuable, and no model changes that. Ohanian frames his portfolio around two sides of a barbell: companies accelerating the AI-driven future, and assets he is confident will survive it. Sports and live events sit firmly on the second side, alongside ModRetro, a consumer electronics company he has backed that makes physical gaming hardware as software gets cheaper to produce.

Athlos and prize money

Ohanian founded Athlos, a professional track and field league built around annual events rather than the four-year Olympic cycle. This year Athlos is distributing over $2.1 million in prize money across two races in New York, and athletes receive equity stakes. For context, the top prize in track and field before Athlos existed was $30,000 for a season championship — men only. Ohanian sees the enhanced games, whatever their flaws, as useful pressure on the same problem: drawing attention to how badly underpaid elite track athletes have historically been.

“There is footage from two and a half years ago at Cannes Lion where I call sports the ultimate anti AI bet. What will remain unchanged and durable in the age of AI even when you can have a pixel perfect highlight of Mbappe scoring a goal, it will do nothing for the soul because it never actually happened. Human experience is the reason why it's valuable. The worst toxicity that I would get was from psychopathic racists on the Internet, and it was tied to sports betting.”

Run clubs as a demand signal

Building Athlos's fan base through run club partnerships has given Ohanian a ground-level view of a broader shift. Run clubs, he argues, have become a way for Gen Z to push back against online dating culture and algorithmic social media — a search for verifiably human interaction. The average soccer fan rarely plays soccer; it is even easier to convert a runner into a track fan. He reads the broader live events boom not just as an AI hedge but as a generational correction, with younger people deliberately seeking out IRL experiences after living through what he calls "the dark parts of social."

Collectibles

Ohanian is lead investor in Alt, a trading card marketplace that recently set an all-time record with a $1.4 million sale of a one-of-one Wemby Kaboom card. He also acquired a trading card company through 776 focused on college sports. Since NIL changed the landscape, the company is issuing cards not just for star athletes but for supporting players — offensive linemen who may never reach the NFL — and has produced more women's college athlete cards in the past year than every other card company combined. Nebraska women's volleyball, he notes, outsells the men's football team on cards.

Sports betting

Ohanian's concern about the sports betting explosion is less about betting itself and more about what happens downstream. The most toxic online abuse he encountered after his wife began her professional career was tied to sports bettors, not generic hate. Tennis, with its longstanding betting culture, is a particular pressure point for athletes who already perform their entire working life in public view.

He draws a distinction between house-always-wins sportsbooks and prediction markets, which are peer-to-peer and feel "more like any market." His deeper worry is societal: young men are biologically disposed toward risk-taking, which is an asset when it drives entrepreneurial bets and a serious liability when it drives compulsive gambling. He believes the conversation the country needs to have about sports betting regulation hasn't started yet, and he is not confident the right people are equipped to lead it.

The live events boom is real and well-documented in the numbers — UFC from $4B to $15B, F1 revenue up 115% since 2017, NBA media rights tripled, NFL locked into $110B through 2033 — but Ohanian's argument is that the most durable part of that growth has nothing to do with AI fear. It is a species-level pull toward shared physical experience that predates modern entertainment by centuries.