To assess the impact of sports beyond their cultural footprint, look no further than New York this summer. Two historic events happened: the Knicks won the NBA championship, and the World Cup held many of its games in the area, including the final match between Argentina and Spain.
Even before the NBA Finals, Mayor Mamdani and the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) announced that the Knicks’ postseason run had generated an estimated $202 million in economic activity. FIFA’s NYNJ Host Committee recently released data showing that World Cup matches generated over $3.5 billion in economic impact for the region.
Sports are an economic and geopolitical phenomenon. They not only bring prosperity to the world; they unite it. There is arguably nothing more powerful at transcending political, economic, and cultural divides.
Kalshi’s mission rests on this belief: that financial markets should include all events that bear economic impact, not just some of them. Until now, people could price the movements of stocks and bonds, but not sports, weather, and elections. We believe that approach is too narrow.
Today, millions of people come to Kalshi simply to look at our forecasts. In fact, nearly 75 percent of our users don’t even trade; they come to our platform just to look for more information. Kalshi is a large, competitive marketplace that matches buyers and sellers with nationwide liquidity. Because of that deep liquidity, organizations like sports teams can offload risk by hedging via a reinsurer on Kalshi.
It’s against this growing demand for sports trading that we’re excited to partner with the Atlantic Council on a new venture, its Power of Sports Center. This global initiative examines sports through the lens of geopolitics, economics, technology, security, and international development. By bridging the gap where no single institution previously convened leaders around these intersections, the Center will generate policy ideas, influence the global sports ecosystem, and harness sports as a vehicle for statecraft and economic impact. And we’ll incorporate Kalshi’s markets to measure the impact of major sports moments (the Olympics, F1, the Super Bowl, the World Cup) and capture the true economic scale of these events in real time.
In addition to Kalshi, the Power of Sports Center is supported by founding partners Atlantic Council Chairman John F.W. Rogers, Goldman Sachs, Atlantic Council Executive Vice Chair Adrienne Arsht, Bank of America, Limak Holding, and Super Technologies.
The Power of Sports Center will organize its work around five areas:
Statecraft: Advancing international cooperation, strengthening alliances, and promoting global leadership through the unifying power of sports.
Infrastructure and Development: Exploring investment, private capital, stadium and venue development, tourism, and the economic impact of major sporting events.
Innovation: Examining the future of sports through artificial intelligence, emerging technologies, and digital transformation.
Society: Expanding opportunity through workforce development, education, and human capital.
Resilience: Strengthening leadership and preparedness by addressing security, climate resilience, public health, and the role of sports in building stronger communities.
We’re looking forward to raising more awareness of the importance of sports as an economic phenomenon and quantifying their impact.
