World 1, a new sports entertainment company that counts 10 Olympic medalists among its founders, is bringing sports to the video vertical — and not just the highlights.
World 1 CEO Brett Morris wants you to see “Microsports,” which he describes as “fully authentic sports where world titles are won or lost in 30 seconds.”
“The entire sports industry was built around television, but fans have moved to their mobile phones,” Morris said. Hollywood Reporter. “We’re building a new mobile sports industry. Not by adapting old sports, but by creating entirely new games designed to feed.”
The bottom line is exactly where your advertising dollars are these days. This is the method followed by Morris and the first world leader, Nate Thomas (BattleBots), a media industry veteran, plans to make his money — also through sponsorship and licensing. (They say there are no subscriptions or microtransactions here. Not yet, at least.)
“The premise is simple: Make sports the spotlight,” Thomas said. “Fans never have to wonder if what they’re watching matters. In World 1, champions put their titles on the line at every event. It’s high stakes by design. Rivalries will be settled and new stars will emerge in a single 30-second window. This intensity is no fluke — it’s the point.”
So the guys started where the sport started, basically, with speed events designed around speed and power. The World’s Fastest 1 competition will tie the title belts to the man and woman who achieve the maximum sprint speed through a 10-yard “speed chamber.” (They will get a running start.)
Mike Weinstein, who ran the NFL Combine for 15 years, is the director of sports technology at World 1. He’ll get that right.
The event will crown the “strongest” as champions of the man and woman able to lift the most weight in the bench press and squat. A 30-second countdown clock at each competition provides the World One’s main principle: “maximum drama in the least possible time.”
The company’s founding investors include Mark Cuban, Abu Dhabi’s Palms Sports Holdings, film producer Jim Swartz and private equity man Dan McIlroy. Olympians counted among the founders are Janet Evans, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Sanya Richards-Ross, Eric Wendt, Wallace Spermum, Tara Davis, Anthony Irvin, C.J. Cummings, Lasinda DeMoss and Adam Nelson.
World 1 is ready to take its (very brief) show on the road. The company created the World 1 Arena, which is described as a “purpose-built modular entertainment stage that can be placed in any large-scale indoor venue in any major city around the world.”
The date and location of the inaugural World 1 event will be announced soon, the company said. It will feature “athletes from current Olympic medalists to emerging phenomenons around the world.”
