From newspapers to radio, television to YouTube, and now artificial intelligence, every media revolution has followed the same pattern: the incumbents defend yesterday’s business model while the newcomers build tomorrow’s empire. But the AI revolution may produce an unexpected winner: professional sports franchises.
Every Media Empire Eventually Meets Its Match
At the height of their power, newspaper publishers controlled the flow of information.
They decided what was newsworthy, who deserved attention, which businesses reached consumers, and what advertisers paid for that privilege.
Then came radio.
Suddenly, information could travel instantly, without ink, paper, printing presses, or delivery trucks.
Radio created an entirely new class of media companies. And just when those companies appeared invincible, television arrived.
Television didn’t merely improve radio. It introduced an entirely different way of consuming news, sports, entertainment, and advertising.
Then came the internet.
And the internet didn’t simply challenge television. It dismantled the very foundations of the traditional media business model: scarcity, distribution control, geographic monopolies, and the economics of bundling.
Today, artificial intelligence threatens to do something even more profound.
It threatens to commoditize the production of content itself.
But history suggests the biggest winners won’t necessarily be the companies that create the most content. They’ll be the companies that control what cannot easily be replicated.
And increasingly, that means real-world experiences, communities, intellectual property, and the emotional connections that bind them together.
A Century of Media Empires
Consider how the center of gravity has shifted across five generations of media.
The following companies are illustrative examples of influential businesses in each era, not a precise historical market-cap ranking. Some survived by evolving; others declined, consolidated, or disappeared.
| Era | Powerful companies | What they controlled |
|---|---|---|
| Print (1900–1950s) | Hearst, Gannett, Tribune, The New York Times Co., Associated Newspapers | Printing, local distribution, journalism, advertising |
| Radio (1920s–1960s) | RCA/NBC, CBS, BBC, Westinghouse, Mutual Broadcasting | Broadcast spectrum, national networks, live programming |
| Television (1950s–2000s) | Disney/ABC, CBS, NBC/GE, Time Warner, News Corp. | Broadcast networks, cable channels, studios, premium programming |
| Internet (1995–2025) | Alphabet/Google, Meta, Amazon, Netflix, Tencent | Digital distribution, search, social graphs, streaming, data |
| AI (2025 onward) | OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, Microsoft, emerging AI-native businesses | Models, compute, agents, personalized creation and discovery |
Notice something interesting.
Each new era created companies whose scale and influence eventually rivaled or exceeded the incumbents.
But it also changed what constituted value.
Print companies owned presses and circulation. Radio companies controlled frequencies and networks. Television companies controlled distribution and expensive programming. Internet companies built platforms and captured user attention at unprecedented scale.
AI companies increasingly control the tools that can create, transform, recommend, and distribute information.
The scarce asset keeps changing.
And the companies that fail to recognize the new scarcity risk becoming extraordinarily well-run businesses in declining markets.
Yesterday’s Slop Is Tomorrow’s Premium Content
Twenty years ago, when we launched WatchMojo in 2006, YouTube was widely dismissed by traditional media executives as a platform for amateur videos, pirated clips, and disposable entertainment.
In today’s vocabulary, much of it would have been called “slop.”
Traditional television was professional. Online video was amateur.
Television had standards. YouTube had cats, skateboarding accidents, and teenagers broadcasting from their bedrooms.
And yet something extraordinary happened.
An entire generation grew up.
For that generation, YouTube wasn’t an inferior substitute for television.
YouTube was television.
Creators became celebrities. Channels became networks. Independent production companies developed audiences that traditional broadcasters would have paid fortunes to reach.
Eventually, professional media companies had to follow those audiences onto platforms they had once dismissed.
WatchMojo was part of that transformation.
We didn’t need a broadcast license, a cable carriage agreement, or a Hollywood studio lot to reach millions of people around the world.
The internet changed who could compete.
More importantly, it changed what consumers considered legitimate, professional, and valuable.
Now consider the next generation.
Children growing up with generative AI may eventually regard AI-assisted entertainment as completely normal.
They may not distinguish between content created by a traditional studio and content assembled, personalized, or transformed with artificial intelligence.
They’ll simply ask the question every generation asks:
Is it entertaining?
And if the answer is yes, they’ll watch.
The Copyright Paradox: Protecting the Past While the Future Arrives
Disney, Warner Bros., and other traditional entertainment companies have spent decades assembling extraordinary libraries of intellectual property.
Those libraries are immensely valuable.
They should protect them.
Copyright is a legitimate property right, and creators deserve compensation for their work.
But there is a difference between protecting intellectual property and assuming that the business models built around that property will remain intact forever.
The music industry initially resisted digital distribution. Newspapers struggled to adapt to online advertising. Television networks underestimated streaming.
In each case, the incumbents had legitimate concerns.
And in each case, consumer behavior changed anyway.
Generative AI introduces a particularly difficult dilemma.
Studios have every reason to prevent unauthorized exploitation of their characters, scripts, performances, and libraries.
But even if they successfully defend every legitimate copyright claim, they cannot prevent entirely new forms of entertainment from emerging.
A teenager who can create an original animated series with AI doesn’t necessarily need to reproduce Mickey Mouse, Batman, or Harry Potter.
They can create something entirely new.
And millions of other creators can do the same.
The result won’t necessarily be the destruction of Hollywood. Premium storytelling, trusted brands, human talent, and established franchises will retain enormous value.
But the economics of content production could change dramatically.
When production becomes cheaper and the volume of content becomes effectively unlimited, the traditional advantages of large studios begin to erode.
The next great entertainment franchise may not originate from a studio that spends $200 million making a movie.
It may originate from a creator who spends $20,000 building a universe that captures the imagination of millions.
The precise numbers are illustrative. The direction of the economic shift is what matters.
The future won’t necessarily belong to whoever can afford to produce content. It will belong to whoever can make audiences care.
Artificial Intelligence Changes the Economics of Abundance
For much of media history, scarcity created value.
There were only so many newspaper pages, radio frequencies, television channels, movie screens, and production budgets.
The internet removed much of the scarcity of distribution.
AI now threatens to remove much of the scarcity of production.
This creates an economic paradox.
The world may consume more content than ever before while the average piece of content becomes less valuable.
As supply explodes, attention becomes harder to capture.
And trust becomes more important.
Consumers may increasingly ask themselves:
Is this real?
Is this authentic?
Is this worth my time?
That brings us to a fascinating category of assets that may become more valuable precisely because AI is making so many other things abundant.
Professional sports franchises.
Why Sports Franchises Could Become the New Media Empires
You can generate a fictional baseball game with artificial intelligence.
You can simulate a walk-off home run, create a virtual superstar, or invent a championship celebration.
But you cannot manufacture the genuine historical significance of a real championship.
You cannot replicate the shared emotional experience of 35,000 fans watching their hometown team win in the bottom of the ninth.
You cannot synthetically recreate the decades of loyalty, heartbreak, family traditions, rivalries, and civic identity that make sports matter.
Or rather, you can simulate the images.
You cannot automatically reproduce the meaning.
That distinction is enormously important.
In a world increasingly saturated with synthetic content, authentic experiences may command an expanding premium.
Professional sports franchises are unusually well positioned because they combine several forms of scarcity:
- Artificially limited supply. Major professional leagues tightly control the number of franchises.
- Geographic identity. A team represents a city, region, and community.
- Authentic, unscripted drama. Nobody knows how the game will end.
- Recurring emotional engagement. Fans return season after season, often across generations.
- Live communal experiences. The stadium is not merely a venue. It’s a gathering place.
This is why I believe the next generation of sports owners must stop thinking of themselves merely as custodians of athletic organizations.
They should begin thinking like founders of diversified media and entertainment companies.
The Franchise Is the Anchor. The Ecosystem Is the Opportunity.
Traditionally, sports franchises generated revenue through tickets, broadcasting rights, sponsorships, merchandise, and concessions.
That remains the foundation.
But consider what happens when a franchise becomes the centerpiece of a much larger commercial ecosystem.
| Business | Traditional franchise | Next-generation franchise |
|---|---|---|
| Sports | Games, tickets, merchandise | Games, experiences, international fan communities |
| Media | Sell broadcasting rights | Own and produce documentaries, programming, podcasts, digital formats |
| Entertainment | Halftime shows, special events | Concerts, festivals, original productions, year-round programming |
| Real estate | Stadium operations, often limited ownership | Mixed-use districts, hospitality, retail, commercial development |
| Technology | Ticketing and fan apps | AI-driven personalization, digital products, direct fan relationships |
| Education | Community outreach | Entrepreneurship academies, athlete development, innovation programs |
| Intellectual property | Team logos and trademarks | Original characters, franchises, formats, stories, licensing |
These businesses don’t all carry the same margins, capital requirements, or risk profiles.
Nor should they necessarily sit inside the same legal entity.
But strategically, they can reinforce one another.
The sports franchise attracts attention.
The media company extends that attention beyond the stadium.
The entertainment company creates additional reasons to visit.
The real estate ecosystem captures some of the economic activity generated by those visits.
And the intellectual property business creates assets capable of traveling around the world.
The team becomes the emotional anchor of a diversified economic ecosystem.
From Media Rights to Media Ownership
There is another fundamental shift worth considering.
Historically, professional sports teams primarily monetized their media value by selling broadcasting rights to third parties.
That model made tremendous sense when broadcasters controlled distribution.
But distribution has changed.
Today, a franchise can reach fans directly through social platforms, streaming services, podcasts, newsletters, and proprietary digital products.
That doesn’t mean teams should abandon lucrative broadcasting agreements.
Quite the opposite.
They should maximize those agreements while developing complementary media businesses that they own.
A baseball team plays 162 regular-season games.
But its stories don’t begin with the first pitch or end with the final out.
There are players, families, rivalries, cities, histories, controversies, triumphs, disappointments, and generations of fans.
There are thousands of stories that can become documentaries, scripted productions, animation, educational content, podcasts, and entirely new entertainment formats.
Some can be directly connected to the franchise.
Others can be independent intellectual property developed using the franchise’s commercial ecosystem as a launchpad.
The distinction matters: leagues, players, broadcasters, and other rights holders have contractual interests that must be respected.
But within those boundaries, the opportunity is considerable.
A sports franchise shouldn’t simply be content that another media company monetizes.
It should increasingly own media businesses of its own.
The Real Estate Revolution
Now add another dimension.
Real estate.
The modern stadium can become the anchor tenant of an entertainment district operating 365 days a year.
We’ve already seen variations of this model around professional sports, including developments associated with the Atlanta Braves and Los Angeles Rams.
But I believe the opportunity goes further.
Imagine a franchise that anchors a district containing hotels, restaurants, museums, production studios, educational institutions, cultural attractions, entertainment venues, and commercial space.
The stadium creates demand.
The district captures economic activity.
The media company tells the stories.
The entertainment company fills the calendar.
The educational institutions cultivate the next generation of talent and entrepreneurs.
Each component supports the others.
And unlike purely digital media, much of this ecosystem is rooted in physical assets, geographic scarcity, and experiences that AI cannot simply generate into existence.
That doesn’t make these investments risk-free. Stadium construction is expensive, real estate development is cyclical, and operating multiple businesses introduces complexity.
But the combination offers something strategically different from a traditional content library.
It creates a business that people can watch, visit, experience, inhabit, and identify with.
The Montreal Expos: Building a Franchise for the Next Media Era
This thinking is central to what we’re attempting through the Peanut Project: our initiative to restore the Montreal Expos through Major League Baseball expansion.
Our ambition isn’t simply to bring back a beloved baseball team.
It’s to build an institution designed for the next several decades.
The proposed model has several complementary components.
First, the franchise itself.
The Montreal Expos would return as a major-league baseball organization, rooted in the city’s identity and history, with the emotional and cultural resonance that professional sports can uniquely create.
Second, a privately financed, retractable-roof stadium.
A modern venue capable of hosting baseball while supporting additional entertainment and commercial uses.
Third, the 4C — Creative, Cultural, Commercial Campus.
A broader destination integrating entertainment, hospitality, culture, education, and entrepreneurship.
Our vision includes a museum celebrating Montreal and Quebec’s builders, alongside the Academy & Study of Entrepreneurship (ASE), designed to help turn ideas into businesses.
Fourth, ExposMedia.
Rather than viewing the team merely as a supplier of games to broadcasters, ExposMedia would be developed as a diversified media and intellectual property business.
It could produce original programming, documentaries, digital content, animation, and other entertainment properties, subject to appropriate rights and commercial arrangements.
And this is where my own experience becomes particularly relevant.
From WatchMojo to AceMojo to ExposMedia
In 2006, I founded WatchMojo at a time when much of the traditional media industry dismissed online video.
Two decades later, we’ve built a global digital media business by understanding that audiences, distribution, formats, and consumer behavior evolve.
That experience taught me a simple lesson.
Don’t build your business around the assumption that today’s distribution model will remain dominant.
Build around what audiences value, and be prepared to evolve how you reach them.
Through AceMojo — A WatchMojo Studio — we’re now expanding our ambitions beyond the digital formats that helped establish WatchMojo.
Our developing slate includes scripted entertainment, animation, documentaries, historical storytelling, and original intellectual property.
These are not merely content projects.
They represent opportunities to build and own entertainment assets that can generate value across multiple formats and distribution channels.
The proposed ExposMedia model would take that philosophy into the world of professional sports.
Imagine combining the reach and production expertise developed through WatchMojo, the original IP ambitions of AceMojo, and the authentic emotional foundation of a professional sports franchise.
Some productions might explore baseball history, Montreal’s cultural legacy, or the stories of athletes and fans.
Others might have no direct connection to baseball whatsoever.
That’s precisely the point.
A diversified media company should not be limited to producing content about its parent franchise.
It should be capable of developing entertainment businesses with their own audiences, revenue streams, and intellectual property.
Over time, such a model could create value independent of the team’s on-field performance.
Importantly, this remains a strategic vision rather than an operating business or a forecast of guaranteed returns. The precise ownership, financing, rights, and revenue-sharing arrangements would need to be negotiated.
But the opportunity is worth exploring because the traditional valuation of a sports franchise may not fully capture the potential value of a broader media, entertainment, and real estate ecosystem.
The Next Disney May Own a Baseball Team
Consider the historical irony.
For decades, sports franchises needed media companies.
They needed radio networks to broadcast games.
They needed television networks to reach national audiences.
They needed cable companies to distribute programming.
And eventually, they needed internet platforms to reach younger generations.
But what happens when distribution becomes ubiquitous and content production becomes increasingly commoditized?
What happens when the most valuable assets are no longer necessarily the channels or the studios, but the communities, experiences, brands, and authentic stories that people care about?
The relationship begins to change.
Media companies will still matter. Disney and Warner Bros. aren’t going to disappear simply because generative AI makes content cheaper.
Their libraries, brands, creative talent, and distribution capabilities remain significant competitive advantages.
But their dominance is not guaranteed.
Nor is the traditional separation between sports, media, entertainment, and real estate destined to survive.
A future sports franchise could own a media studio, develop original IP, operate an entertainment district, manage a cultural institution, and participate in technology and educational ventures.
Its baseball team might be its most recognizable asset.
But it wouldn’t necessarily be its only source of enterprise value.
And in an AI-saturated world, the authenticity of live sports could become an increasingly important competitive advantage.
The Next Media Revolution Won’t Just Be About Media
Every generation makes the same mistake.
It assumes that the companies dominating the present are best positioned to dominate the future.
Newspapers thought they owned information.
Radio thought it owned immediacy.
Television thought it owned entertainment.
Internet platforms came to own distribution, discovery, and attention.
AI is now challenging the economics of creation itself.
But when everything can be generated, what becomes more valuable?
What cannot simply be generated.
A real city.
A real community.
A real rivalry.
A real stadium.
A real championship.
A real moment shared by tens of thousands of people who will remember it for the rest of their lives.
The winners of the next media revolution may not be the companies producing the most synthetic entertainment.
They may be the companies that own the most meaningful authentic experiences — and know how to transform those experiences into global media, entertainment, and commercial ecosystems.
That’s the opportunity I see in professional sports.
And it’s why we’re not simply trying to restore the Montreal Expos.
We’re trying to build the kind of sports, media, entertainment, and cultural institution that the next generation will take for granted — just as today’s generation takes YouTube for granted, despite the fact that the previous generation dismissed it.
The next Disney might not begin as a movie studio.
It might begin with a baseball team.
And if we have our way, that team will be wearing an Expos uniform.
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