CMU Startup Week Panel Explores What’s Next in Sports Entertainment

For sports fans, the game doesn’t just end with the fourth quarter anymore. Increasingly, they’re finding ways to extend the experience – whether that’s through video games, fantasy leagues, or sports betting.

On September 15, 2026, Carnegie Mellon University community members gathered in Simmons Auditorium at the Tepper School of Business as part of its annual Startup Week. They were there for “Technology and the Future of Sports Entertainment,” a panel discussing technology’s role in the evolution of the industry.

Derek Ham, the director of CMU’s Entertainment Technology Center (ETC), was one of the panel’s experts. It also included Rebecca Nugent, Feinberg University Professor of Statistics and Data Science; Ron Yurko, director of the Carnegie Mellon Sports Analytics Center; and Rod Murray, senior director of game presentation and entertainment for the Pittsburgh Penguins.

During the half-hour panel, Ham highlighted the blurred boundaries between fans and gamers. Comparing the hours fans devote to their team during the season with the hours they spend playing the latest edition of football video game Madden NFL, he argued that gaming and live sports should not be viewed as separate markets.

“The future is not going to be segregating the fans of the video game version of a sport from fans of the live event,” Ham said. “We have to look at this more broadly and ask what that means, and to see a future where we don't treat these markets differently.”

He also pointed to the use of virtual reality (VR) technologies to train athletes. “That's really strong value for VR in the marketplace, and now being strengthened with real data,” Ham said.

The conversation also addressed more broadly how teams collect and use data. Nugent cautioned against assuming more information necessarily leads to better results. “More data does not equal better data,” Nugent said. “We want to think about, ‘what's the right data, and how are we going to use it?’”

Even as they acknowledged those challenges, the panelists all agreed that the changing technological landscape presents clear opportunities — particularly where sports and technology converge.

“If I was to draw this Venn diagram of all three components — fantasy football, live sports, and video game technology — somewhere at that intersection is a new experience that has not yet been explored,” Ham said. “That's what I would like to gravitate towards.”