TiEcon 2025: What it takes to be a sport and cultivate cultural capital in the age of AI

The 2025 edition of TiEcon, one of the world's largest,most influential entrepreneurship-focussed events, kicked off with a panel comprising some of the most powerful executives in sports and entertainment. Titled 'Owning and Winning - Sports Media & Entertainment Binds Culture', the opening grand keynote was moderated by Jagdeep Singh Bachher, Chief Investment Officer, Office of the President, University of California. It featured:
Vivek Ranadive
, Chairman, CEO, and Governor, Sacramento Kings
Thomas C. Werner
, Chairman, Fenway Sports Group (FSG)
Paul Wachter
, Founder & CEO, Main Street Advisors
Satyan Gajwani
, Vice Chairman, Times Internet
The highlights of the opener at the Santa Clara Convention Center, California, were the freewheeling yet insightful stories by the panelists on being changemakers in industry-leading companies and the role of AI in their respective domains. Thomas Werner, who also chairs Major League Baseball franchise Boston Red Sox and Liverpool FC in the Premier League, discussed the different use cases of AI in football and baseball. Vivek Ranadive shared his journey from Mumbai to owning the Sacramento Kings and leveraging data for fan engagement. Satyan Gajwani discussed the rise of Major League Cricket in the US. Paul Wachter emphasised authenticity in cultural influence and managing athletes' finances.
Here are some of the highlights of the opening keynote:
Vivek Ranadive on immigrating to the US and acquiring the Kings
'My life's defining moment was the Apollo moon landing in 1969. I was a little boy in Bombay and had a transistor radio plastered to my ear. That was when I heard the magical words, 'One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind'. I thought, 'Wow, who are these people that were able to take a man, put him in a box and send him that far away to land on a rock for the very first time — flawlessly, too?'
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That was when I told myself I'd be one of them, that I'd get to get to the US. I showed up in Boston with just $50 in my pocket but big dreams in my head. And eventually ended up starting some companies. I got very lucky.
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One day, David Stern [former commissioner of the NBA] called me and asked me to save the [Sacramento] Kings. [Former Microsoft CEO] Steve Ballmer had made a deal to move them to Seattle, and I'd moved to California by then. Everything I have now, I owe to this great state. So I jumped in and bought the Kings. And here we are.'
Thomas Werner on AI applications in football and baseball
'One of the myriad ways we use AI in soccer [football] is that we now have been able to collect every single corner kick that was done in the Premier League last year. I think there were like 7,000, and we've studied where our defenders should be, where we should be doing corner kicks from, and where we should position our players. Some are just some of a hundred different ways in which we've been using AI.
It's all data-driven. In baseball, we can now look at the arm slot of a pitcher if he's not pitching well and quickly make any corrections. It's much more than, 'Hey, I saw your arm motion, and it's not like what it was three times earlier, when you pitched a shutout.' The information is fast, objective, and fabulous.'
Paul Wachter on authenticity and the roots of Billie Eilish's fragrance line
'The internet is flooded with influencers of all kinds. Unfortunately, what's happened now with this diaspora of influence is that it's losing its credibility and authenticity.
I like to tell this story about Billie Eilish, who I've worked with since she was 16 or 17 years old. She was passionate about fragrance and she had a little vial of perfume she carried around with her. She didn't remember where she'd gotten it, but she'd smell it. She wouldn't use it because she had so little left.
During Covid-19, we asked her if we could explore recreating the fragrance she was so obsessed with. We sent it to a lab, which then came back with seven versions of what they thought it could be. She started smelling them over a Zoom call, and when she got to number three, she started crying and said, 'This. This is the thing I want to recreate.'
That's how we launched her fragrance line, which has been a huge, huge success. I think every consumer today can — not to pun — smell the difference. If it's not authentic, they know.'
Satyan Gajwani on cultural capital
'We have really large news brands, sports brands and other things of that sort. But increasingly, a lot of my focus has been about India's global capital, and how we can become an important power and cultural centre around the world.
Inevitably, cricket very much strikes at the core of that. It's the second biggest sport in the world, but under-penetrated in the US. So about five years ago, we started Major League Cricket [MLC]. We'll have our third season this summer. We think of MLC as a way to popularise not just the sport, but also the global influence of Indian culture.'
TiEcon 2025, which took place from April 30 to May 2, also featured eminent tech executives as keynote speakers. ICYMI, here
are the takeaways from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella's discussion on what makes a generational company in the AI age.

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