When Carolyn Tisch Blodgett's family bought half the New York Giants more than 30 years ago, people thought the money would be faster to burn than to spend on a football team.
Now she's sitting at Bloomberg talking about sports as an institutional asset class — the opposite end of the same business.
"People thought it would be faster to burn the money, you know, than spend that on a sports team."
Blodgett is founder and CEO of Next3 Ventures, governor and lead owner of Gotham FC, and co-owner of the Giants; before sports, she ran marketing at Peloton through its growth years.
I listened to the full segment so you can skip it.
Here are the 3 takeaways that matter.
👤 Guest: Carolyn Tisch Blodgett, Founder and CEO of Next3 Ventures, Governor and Lead Owner of Gotham FC, and co-owner of the New York Giants
🎙️ Hosts: Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec, of Bloomberg Businessweek Daily
📰 Published: 10 September 2026, on the Bloomberg Businessweek podcast feed
🟣 Apple Podcasts | ⏱️ 45 min | ✅ Time saved: 41 min
Key Takeaways
Her family bought half the Giants for $75 million over 30 years ago, when it was considered a hobby, not an investable product
She says higher valuations now come with higher standards for running teams professionally
She doesn't think AI will replace live sports, even as it makes scouting and fan development more efficient
Her reasoning: nobody knows the outcome in advance, and "the robot doesn't have a story"
Gotham FC's strategy borrows directly from her time running marketing at Peloton
The lesson there was that fans bond with the instructor, not the bike — at Gotham, that means building players like Jaxson Dart into stars, not just selling the franchise's history
1. From Hobby To Asset Class
Massar asked Blodgett to describe how sports investing has changed since her family's Giants purchase.
"When my family got involved in the New York Giants, this was over 30 years ago, and it was really thought of as a hobby," she said — her grandfather paid $75 million for half the team, and people thought it would be faster to burn the money than spend it on a sports franchise
She said the shift toward professional and institutional capital raises both prices and expectations, calling it a trade-off: "The standard now is to run teams as professional products."
She was careful to separate that from turning a team into a purely financial product: as an owner, she said, "you are a steward of a community asset," and she doesn't think that will change even as more institutional money comes in
2. AI Won't Replace It
Asked directly whether AI threatens the live product, Blodgett pushed back, while acknowledging it changes other parts of the business.
She said AI will likely make scouting and fan development more efficient, but the live, unscripted nature of sports is what makes it durable — "But the idea, I think part of what makes sports so special is the live nature of it. And I don't think that's going away anytime soon."
Pressed on whether AI-driven players or robot competitors were coming, she said it "feels a long way away," while stopping short of ruling it out entirely
She tied this back to fan connection, citing the World Cup moment when fans fell in love with Erling Haaland's on-field mannerisms — "Well, the robot doesn't have a story. It comes out of a box. And gets turned on."
3. The Peloton Lesson
Blodgett ran marketing at Peloton during its growth years before moving into sports ownership, and said the same insight now drives her approach at Gotham FC.
At Peloton, she found fans weren't actually attached to the bike itself — "It was about the instructor and the relationship that you had" — so her team built the instructors into stars rather than selling hardware
She's applying the same model at Gotham: making a fan's relationship with the club about specific players and moments — she named quarterback Jaxson Dart and the team's new coach — rather than only the franchise's history
On Gotham's own origin, she said the bet when she and her co-owners took over was on the growth of both women's sports and soccer specifically, anticipating that World Cup and Olympics viewership would eventually translate into local fandom for a New York team
Bonus Insights
Blodgett said most of Next3's investments aren't chosen "sport first" — the filter is product-market fit (is there a real fan base, even a small one) and room for disruption in media or fan development
She said she wasn't surprised by the US World Cup's popularity in the States, calling it validation of Gotham's original thesis that the product simply wasn't there yet domestically to capture existing soccer fandom
Products, Companies & Tools Mentioned
Gotham FC (The NWSL club Blodgett governs and co-owns, built around the bet that women's soccer fandom would follow the World Cup and Olympics)
New York Giants (Co-owned by the Tisch family since her grandfather bought half the team for $75 million over 30 years ago)
Next3 Ventures (The sports, media and entertainment investment firm Blodgett founded and runs as CEO)
Peloton (Where Blodgett ran marketing during its growth years, and the source of the instructor-as-star lesson she applies at Gotham)
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