Ten years ago, startups working in and around sports could get away with a half-baked brand, so long as they had some traction (logos) and a decent product. Today, that’s not enough. The bar has been raised. The merging of sports with tech, media and culture has accelerated, and this has had a profound impact on companies starting out and building in sports.

Today, if you’re building anything that touches sports — whether business, media or tech — your company is being judged by a different set of criteria. To stand out, you need to signify relevance, credibility and a clear point of view from the jump.

When people hear “brand,” they still think logo. Or color palette. Or some vibe-y mission statement that looks good in a pitch deck or on a home page. But in 2025, brand is the fastest shortcut to trust. And in early-stage land, trust is everything.

Most founders think brand is what you do after you hit product-market fit.

That’s backward. The best ones use brand to get there.

Take Teamworks, for example. Launched in 2004 and raising its first outside investment nine years ago, the company has since gone from a $6 million Series A to a $235 million Series F at a $1 billion valuation earlier this year. In a crowded space where every competitor claims to be “the platform people plug into,” Teamworks actually pulled it off. Brand played a huge role in that climb, establishing a consistent position in the market.

The same applies to Hyperice, which embedded brand into its DNA from Day 1. Over the years, they have evolved and pivoted, fueled growth through........

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