Why the future of global sports tech is being prototyped in Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia’s rise as a global sports power follows a distinctive pattern. Instead of different segments of the sports sector evolving one after another, the whole sector advances together – venues, leagues, events, media and technology influence each other, operating as a connected system. 

And we’re creating a focal point for this approach. 

At LEAP 2026, our Sports Tech Hub will reflect the nation’s wider sports evolution. We’re bringing together the technologies, operators and decision-makers shaping how sport is built, tested and scaled across Saudi Arabia today.

A national sports programme meets a global platform

Saudi Arabia’s hosting of the FIFA World Cup 2034 anchors a long-term national sports programme, supported by extensive investment in venues, transport, security and digital infrastructure.

Scale changes how innovation behaves. When multiple stadiums and competitions are delivered together, technology becomes operational by design. Crowd management, payments, broadcast, sustainability and performance systems have to work consistently across cities, seasons and audiences.

So we’re curating the LEAP Sports Tech Hub to sit inside this reality. It mirrors what Saudi Arabia is already building – offering a global platform where founders, sports leaders and investors can examine how large-scale deployment actually works.

Venues designed as platforms – and explored at LEAP

Across Saudi Arabia, new sports venues are being conceived as digitally native environments. Developments including Qiddiya’s Prince Mohammed bin Salman Stadium integrate real-time data, immersive media and climate-responsive design into their core architecture.

These projects shape the agenda at Sports Tech Hub. Conversations move upstream – from selling tech into completed venues; to collaborating earlier, during design, construction and operational planning.

If you’re a sports tech leader attending LEAP 2026, the Hub offers you a direct view into how venue technology fits into Saudi Arabia’s broader sports system; connecting elite performance, fan experience and long-term sustainability.

Esports as an accelerator

Esports adds another layer of momentum. 

Riyadh hosts large-scale international esports tournaments that bring together competition, production, broadcast and fan engagement at pace. And the infrastructure around esports evolves fast – which creates frequent opportunities to test formats, platforms and audience interaction models.

At LEAP’s Sports Tech Hub, esports sits alongside football, motorsport, combat sports and tennis. Because Saudi Arabia treats competitive gaming as part of the wider sports ecosystem, not as a totally separate track.

This convergence holds new possibilities, because lessons travel fast between disciplines when we let them. Technologies proven in esports inform live sport operations, and innovations from traditional sport influence gaming and broadcast. LEAP is the meeting point where that cross-pollination is visible.

Systems thinking and momentum on display

Across Saudi Arabia’s sports landscape, progress comes from connecting systems – instead of optimising different components in isolation. 

• Performance data links to media and content
• Venue operations connect to security and payments
• Sustainability targets influence design, logistics and scheduling
• Sport functions as an operating layer that touches cities, tourism, culture and technology.

At LEAP 2026, Sports Tech Hub places this systems thinking on stage – as lived experience drawn from projects already underway across the country. 

Saudi Arabia’s sports sector is currently valued in the single-digit billions, and has ambitions to more than double by 2030. To grow at that pace, it has to pull in technology – analytics, automation and platforms that allow scale without friction.

We’re creating a space to make that happen. Sport expresses competition, talent, hard work, culture, and emotion. It’s never just one thing; and that’s why Saudi Arabia’s big-picture approach to sports evolution has an increasingly important impact on global sports tech. 

Meet us at Sports Tech Hub: where systems meet scale, and the future of sport takes form.