Dubai-based entrepreneur reimagining live sports on sea and land

There are few elite live sports that have failed to become even more popular in the virtual world of esports.

The online gaming industry is today worth hundreds of billions of dollars and now dwarfs the film industry and many sporting ones. The trend is only set to continue in one direction.

Which is why it might seem counterintuitive for Adi K Mishra, UAE-based entrepreneur and Founder and CEO of League Sports Co., a sports tech holding company, to move into the what he calls “real world sports assets.”

Alongside Indian cricket legend Virat Kohli, Mishra is now set to lead Blue Rising in the PIF-backed UIM E1 World Championship, the world’s first all-electric raceboat series.

The team will compete against the electric RaceBird teams announced by Tom Brady, Rafael Nadal, Steve Aoki, Didier Drogba and Sergio Perez in the inaugural season kicking off in Jeddah on Feb. 2-3.

Mishra said: “The question we asked ourselves is what is going to increase in value?”

The answer, in short, was live sports.

“We focus largely on under-appreciated or new age sports assets, which have the ability to engage fans in new ways,” he said. “And that’s how Blue Rising came about. That came to our table earlier in the year and we thought it was an incredible concept. The boats look absolutely stunning, and the more we found out about the engineering that went behind the boats, we’re really looking forward for the world to be able to see these and experience these boats racing against each other.”

Mishra says potential assets musts satisfy certain criteria that LSC value, among those being sustainability and gender equality. E1 ticks off both. Having Kohli on board amplifies the message, he says.

“It’s obviously a humbling process and