MONEY

As the sports economy grows, insurers rush to cover risks from World Cup disruptions to NIL liabilities.

This article appears in the September issue of Global Finance Magazine.

On 104 separate occasions in June and July, World Cup organizers tried something new. They held games at 16 venues across Mexico, the U.S., and Canada. More games in more locations increased the risk of cancellation due to threats of terrorism, fire, and climate-related catastrophes, as well as cyber incidents and other disruptions.

Long before players took the field, a small army of insurance professionals analyzed risks, negotiated policies, and drafted contracts to help ensure FIFA would not suffer crippling financial losses if an event was canceled. FIFA carried about $1 billion in event-cancellation coverage for this year’s tournament, up from an estimated $900 million for Qatar in 2022, according to Mario De Cicco, vice president of Morningstar DBRS’s Global Insurance & Pension Ratings group. 

FIFA is just one component of the mammoth worldwide sports industry, which the World Economic Forum estimates generated $2.3 trillion in revenue in 2025. 

“It’s not only the large events like the World Cup which are becoming more frequent and more complex,” said De Cicco. “There is also growing participation at every level, from amateurs to professionals. So there are more potential financial losses, and that creates higher demand for insurance protection.”

The magnitude of the money isn’t the only thing that’s changed; the risks CFOs must insure against are also evolving. A decade ago, sports insurance meant stadiums, workers’ comp, and injured players. Today it means ransomware, brand damage, NIL (name, image, and likeness) contracts, and even sports-betting integrations with little or no actuarial history, forcing carriers and brokers to build coverage from scratch in real time for risks that may not have existed five years ago.

Burgeoning demand has transformed a specialty market into a profit center for insurers, according to De Cicco. Large carriers such as Zurich, Munich Re, Swiss Re, and Allianz dominate the top end, he noted, while niche players like American Specialty Insurance and Berkley Insurance add depth. Often, the largest sports insurance contracts are underwritten by a syndicate, using a risk-sharing structure to mitigate catastrophic losses.

The Change at Colleges

College sports illustrate what can happen when rapid growth hits an area with little or no actuarial history. Much of the growth comes from NIL compensation and the revenue-sharing framework established by the landmark 2025 House v. NCAA decision, which turned university athletic departments in the U.S. into direct payers of athlete compensation — and bearers of financial risk when a star gets hurt.

Zurich entered the market in August 2025 with the sports-data firm Players Health, after about 15 years of providing coverage to schools and sports organizations. They built a product that reimburses institutions for NIL value when an athlete misses at least 40% of a season, up to policy limits of $2 million. However, for the new line, Zurich had no direct actuarial history.

“We weren’t pricing it blind,” said Marty Banaszek, head of Group Accident at Zurich North America; Players Health’s underlying injury data across sport and position helped to make the risk underwritable. Premiums run roughly 6% to 12% of contract value, weighted toward the highest-exposure positions: “starting quarterbacks, starting running backs,” Banaszek said.

Tate Gillespie, vice president of NIL Strategy & Partnerships at Players Health, helped build the product with Zurich. His “aha” moment came while working in sports at the University of Kansas, when the team’s starting quarterback, a player earning significant NIL money, was injured. A friend and eventual Players Health co-founder asked what the university’s risk management plan was, assuming there wasn’t one. 

“You realize that’s not how the National Football League does it,” his friend said, pointing out that pro teams had been insuring against this kind of loss for years, but nothing like it existed in college sports.

The combined NIL and revenue-share market is approaching $3 billion today, Gillespie estimates, and he projects it will reach $4 billion to $5 billion in a year, with 30% to 40% annual growth. Banaszek frames buying behavior in financial terms: “These organizations really need to think of this spend as an investment portfolio, not dissimilar [to] how insurance or other financial institutions make investment decisions.”

When Risk Stopped Being Physical

That’s already the case, said Rory Lough, senior vice president at global brokerage Gallagher, who pointed out that NIL has broadened exposure well beyond the training room. It now includes athlete protection, contractual and business liability for collectives, and institutional compliance risk related to Title IX and employment classification. 

“Stakeholders are no longer looking at insurance as simply protection against injury,” she said. That newly intangible category of risk — brand, data, governance — runs through nearly every exposure. Cyber touches it all, from contract records and fan payment data to medical files, compliance documentation, and more.

Cybercriminals target major sporting events for their high visibility, said Jeffrey Lang, senior vice president and California Platform Leader at brokerage Trucordia. However, the risk is particularly hard to price because of its relative newness and the perpetrators’ adaptability. A game-day ransomware attack on a stadium operator can simultaneously bring down payment systems, digital ticketing, security access, and broadcast feeds. Risk rises with AI deepfakes and misinformation that can derail a team’s reputation. 

“How do you put a precise dollar figure on lost brand trust or broken sponsor confidence?” Lang asked. “You can measure the cost of rebuilding a damaged wall, but calculating the financial damage of a ruined reputation is much harder.”

Ten years ago, he said, he would talk with prospects about insuring their stadium against fire or property damage, covering concourse slip-and-falls, buying workers’ comp for staff, and securing basic coverage for player injuries or weather-related cancellations. If something broke or someone got hurt, the carrier absorbed the financial hit. That playbook, Lang said, no longer applies.

Much of the sports insurance build-out can be ascribed to the growth of major sports franchises, some of which have become multifaceted corporations, worth more than many Fortune 500 companies. They run real estate portfolios, media companies, and massive data operations. 

But the nature of the insured is different too. 

“The big difference between a sports franchise and a typical corporate entity is visibility,” Lang added. “If a corporate server goes down quietly, it’s an internal headache. If a stadium’s entry system fails live on international TV and in front of 70,000 fans, it’s global news instantly.”  

Weld Royal is a contributing writer based in the U.S.