3 days ago
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World 1, a new sports-entertainment company that counts 10 Olympic medalists among its founders pool, is bringing sports to vertical video — and not just highlights.
Brett Morris, the CEO of World 1, wants you to watch his “Microsports,” which he describes as “entirely original sports where world titles are won or lost in 30 seconds.”
“The entire sports industry was built around the TV, but audiences have moved to their phones,” Morris told The Hollywood Reporter. “We’re building a new sports industry for the phone. Not by adapting legacy sports, but by creating entirely new ones engineered for the feed.”
The feed is exactly where the ad dollars are these days. And that is how Morris and World 1 president Nate Thomas (BattleBots), a media-industry veteran, plan to make their money — as well as through sponsorship and licensing. (No subscriptions or microtransactions here, they say. Not yet at least.)
“The premise is simple: Make the highlight the sport,” Thomas said. “Fans never have to wonder if what they’re watching matters. At World 1, champions put their titles on the line at every event. It’s high-stakes by design. Rivalries will get settled and new stars will emerge in a single, 30-second window. That intensity isn’t an accident — it’s the entire point.”
So the guys are starting where sports started, basically, with rapid-fire events designed around speed and strength. World 1’s “Fastest” competition will strap title belts on the man and woman who hits the fastest maximum sprint speed through a 10-yard “Speed Chamber.” (They’ll get a running start.)
Mike Weinstein, who ran the NFL Combine for 15 years, is World 1’s director of sports technology. He’ll get that one right.
The “Strongest” event will crown as champions the man and woman who can lift the most combined weight in bench-press and squats. The 30-second countdown clock on each competition delivers World 1’s main principle: “maximum drama in minimum time.”
The company’s founding investors include Mark Cuban, Abu Dhabi holding company Palms Sports, film producer Jim Swartz and private-equity guy Dan McClory. The Olympians counted among the founders are Janet Evans, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Sanya Richards-Ross, Erik Vendt, Wallace Spearmom, Tara Davis, Anthony Ervin, CJ Cummings, Lashinda Demus and Adam Nelson.
World 1 is ready to take its (very brief) show on the road. The company has created World 1 Arena, described as a “purpose-built, entertainment-first modular stage that can drop into any large-scale indoor venue in any major city worldwide.”
The date and place of the inaugural World 1 event will be announced shortly, the company said. It will feature “athletes from current Olympic medalists to emerging phenoms worldwide.”
English (US) ·