ScrumLaunch CEO, Charlie Lambropoulos, recently had the privilege of taking the stage at SPOBIS Conference 2026, held February 4-5 in Hamburg, Germany. SPOBIS isn’t a standard conference, it is the world’s largest sports business event, bringing together over 5,000 participants from more than 50 nations and 1,500 international companies, including top-level decision-makers.
The event features two full days of high-level conversations across multiple stages, speakers from leading clubs, leagues, brands, startups, and rights holders. This year’s stage hosted C-suite leaders from Europe's most influential football institutions and authoritative figures from across global sports: Jan-Christian Dreesen (FC Bayern Munich CEO), Carsten Cramer (Borussia Dortmund CEO), Bjørn Gulden (Adidas CEO), and Arthur Hoeld (CEO of Puma), and more than 200 other executives representing every corner of global sport. Government and institutional voices were present too - German sports officials, DFB (German FA), DFL, and FIFA-linked initiatives.
Topics ranged from sponsorship and digitalization to sportstech, sustainability, media, and commercialization. For anyone serious about sports, media, tech, or investment, this is the place where the conversation happens, where deals are whispered in hallways, and where the industry collectively decides what’s next.
That’s the level of conversation Charlie was part of - and he wasn’t just an attendee. He was a speaker sharing the stage with Ram Parimi, a Go-to-Market strategist, experienced in scaling businesses and translating strategy into results. Together, they shared how US investors view European football and why they need to rethink applying Silicon Valley logic to century-old football clubs.
The main message they delivered: football clubs aren't tech startups, and you can't afford to break them.
Think about it: In the tech world, speed is survival. So Silicon Valley has a mantra - “Move fast and break things.” And in tech, that truly works. If your app fails, you iterate, pivot, and fix the bugs. It’s fast, ruthless, and often profitable. This approach has created some of the world's most valuable companies. But football clubs, as Charlie emphasized on stage, are fundamentally different organisms.
Football clubs have been around for decades; they're not in a race to IPO. Decades of history. Generations of fans. Deeply rooted culture. You can’t just restructure, tear things down, and rebuild on the fly. Every football club is unique - there's only one Liverpool, one Bayern Munich, and one Juventus. Each one has its history, culture, and community embedded in every decision. If you alienate fans, destroy team chemistry, or ignore tradition, you’ve damaged something irreplaceable - a brand that took a century to build. There’s no pivot, no rollback, no A/B test that restores generational trust overnight. You can't just shut it down and start over. One misstep and the trust you inherited with a century of loyalty is gone - maybe forever.
Rather than disruption for its own sake, Charlie and Ram outlined two key opportunities for thoughtful investors:
- Scarce IP in an AI-Saturated World
You cannot manufacture a 100-year-old institution with generational loyalty overnight. Every logo, every anthem, every fan chant has been built over decades. These clubs have built genuine emotional connections with millions of fans over generations – something that can't be manufactured or replicated by an algorithm, no matter how sophisticated your AI is. In a world drowning in AI-generated content that is infinite and cheap, a football club’s authentic brand, its intellectual property, is increasingly rare and valuable. It’s not just nostalgia. It’s an asset that can be monetized through sponsorship, media rights, merchandising, and global fan engagement. Charlie’s point was clear: this is a moat that has to be nurtured.
- Building Data-Informed Culture
The other opportunity is operational. Clubs are not broken, so they don’t need a Silicon Valley overhaul. The real opportunity isn't to "disrupt" these organizations with aggressive tech-first strategies, it's to carefully build data infrastructure that makes clubs smarter, both on the pitch and in their business operations, without touching what fans love. On the pitch, data can predict injuries, optimize training, and improve performance. Off the pitch, it can guide ticket pricing, fan engagement, and commercial deals. This means using data to inform decisions, not replace the human judgment, institutional knowledge, and cultural understanding that have sustained these clubs for decades.
One specific example that caught Charlie's attention at SPOBIS was Biolyz, led by Marlon Millard. The company has developed a saliva test that measures multiple biomarkers for physical performance, and it's increasingly being adopted by leading clubs across Europe. Charlie believes that's exactly the kind of thoughtful, data-driven innovation this space needs. It works with the existing medical and coaching staff, giving them better information to make decisions. It doesn't change the fan experience, doesn't alter the sport itself, and doesn't require clubs to tear up their existing operations. It just makes them smarter about player health and performance.
Overall, SPOBIS 2026 underscored that the intersection of technology, data, and European football remains in its early stages, which is precisely what makes it so exciting. As American investment continues to flow into European clubs, the approach matters as much as the capital. Charlie's takeaway after two days of discussions with industry leaders was clear: the opportunity is enormous, but only if we approach it with the respect and care these clubs deserve.
For ScrumLaunch, this space reflects a broader shift we see across industries: traditional institutions entering their next digital evolution phase. The challenge isn’t simply building software. It’s building technology that respects legacy while unlocking measurable performance gains. The conversations at SPOBIS reinforced what we've long believed at ScrumLaunch: whether you're building digital products or stewarding historic institutions, success comes from understanding context, respecting legacy, and moving with intention rather than just velocity.