Winner at SPORT[GEN] Summit, Paris
Won The Draft at SPORT[GEN] Summit in Paris, judged by PSG Labs, AWS, and SportsTechX.
I almost didn't go. Paris the same week as a product sprint, two flights, a panel prep, and a pitch deck that still wasn't where I wanted it. But the jury list had PSG Labs, AWS, and SportsTechX on it, and you don't skip a room like that.
We won The Draft. Out of a field of sports-tech startups pitching on the main stage, PLAYBACK took first place.
What stuck with me wasn't the trophy. It was the conversation after. The judges weren't asking 'what could this become?' They were asking 'how are you already at 75,000 players?' The pitch shifted from potential to scale halfway through, and that's a different meeting entirely.
Paris was also where the Middle East expansion stopped being theoretical. Three conversations on the sidelines, two of them with people who can actually open doors in the Gulf. More on that soon.
Sometimes the thing you almost skip is the thing that changes the trajectory.