The Robots Will Be Pro Athletes

The Humanoid Era Begins…

Will there ever be robots in sports?

Before we get to the robot takeover… this week reminded us of something machines can’t replicate (at least, I really hope not): nostalgia. Nothing captured it better than the latest record-breaking sale on Rally: our 1999 Pokémon 1st Edition PSA 10 set.

It started with a $600K buyout offer from one Rally investor, then turned into a 24-hour bidding war when another member came over the top. When the dust settled, the final price hit $911,629.69, delivering hundreds of investors a 52% gain from IPO and 137% from the last trade. The sale sets a new world record for any Pokémon set ever sold: and marks Rally’s 9th World Record Exit.

more to come on this very soon, but now, on to the Robots… 🤖

Since the late 90’s, we’ve seen computers attempting to take down humans in sports like Chess (with success), but the physical robot vs. human or humanoid vs. humanoid competitions may be coming sooner than we think. 

This week, the public launch of the NEO Home Robot - a $20,000 humanoid designed to live alongside you, doing chores and learning through interaction - felt like a glimpse into that possibility. If you were anywhere on X or Threads, you definitely saw some of the (eerie) footage. It’s equal parts shocking and incredible. This is where it starts - the first “oh sh*t” example that breaks our imagination and gets us comfortable with the impending future.

So when does it get to sports? Not robot umpires, mascots, or recovery equipment - but real, robot athletes performing on the biggest stages for millions of viewers. Players built from metal and code, stepping onto fields designed for the performance of the .1% of us that are able to squeeze the absolute highest possible output out of the human body.

A quick glimpse at our current landscape, full of not just a new humanoid in-home robot, but autonomous and AI-fueled everything, makes it easy to imagine a future where these machines evolve past dishwashing and vacuuming, and begin dribbling, sprinting, tackling, and and performing in ways that challenge not just human ability, but the very definition of sport itself.

This week, I’m making the case for both sides, with a little bit of “how we got here…” for Saint Things 208, from Rally.

The First Attempts at Robotic Competition

Before humanoid athletes, there were machines built for spectacle.

Every male millennial of a certain age remembers a show called “BattleBots.” It was part science, part robotics, part Gladiators in the Colosseum fighting to the death…it was spectacle in a real arena, where some of the smartest teams of engineers built small remote controlled robots capable of actual cage-fighting.

Two robots would face off and fight each other with saws and flamethrowers and automated hammers. It was pure violent chaos with the same train-wreck-in-waiting feel of a demolition derby. But it never scaled to the prestige of traditional sport. Without human triumph or heartbreak, the stakes felt low. 

But it was the intro.

Fast forward to what many would consider the most commercially viable version of robot competition and you land on the Drone Racing League. Launched in 2015 it promised a vision of fast, futuristic sport - pilots controlling small flying robots through neon-lit arenas. It looked incredible, but the excitement faded quickly. The pilots, not the drones, were the stars. And as the drones became more capable, the human element intended to create tension, risk, and emotion, began to disappear. While it still exists, it never fully achieved what ESPN and others thought it would - a new era of unmanned sport. 

These early experiments showed something important though: the robots were impressive, but we, the humans behind the robots, still became the story.

The Rise of RoboCup

If BattleBots was demolition, RoboCup is diplomacy.

Created in 1996, RoboCup was built with an audacious goal: by 2050, to field a team of humanoid robots capable of beating the FIFA World Cup champions. 

The competition has grown to include over 300 teams from 40+ countries - robots that walk, dribble, and pass with improving precision every year.

The technology is fascinating: self-organizing AI systems that cooperate without central commands, cameras that interpret motion in real time, and motor systems built to mimic biological gait. 

The more interesting part, whoever, is how bad they still are…

Watching a RoboCup match in 2025 feels like watching toddlers play soccer underwater. The movements are almost there… but its still clumsy and slow, crossing into the uncanny valley of “thats cute” - the gap where serious ideas go to die.

That said, the technology curve on robotics is steepening and the gap between comedy and competence is shrinking. Every year, they get better, and in a world where it only takes one well publicized hit to make a global movement, this could be the exit velocity for humanoids in physical sports.

The Human Problem: We Break, and We Love to Cheat

Professional sports exist because of human limitations. Every record, every moment of greatness, exists in tension with the fragility of the body that achieves it. But fragility has become expensive.

In the NFL, concussions have rewritten rulebooks. Quarterbacks are untouchable and defenses are how trained to pull up if theres even a possibility that a hit will be “too rough.” Tackles that used to define highlight reels now draw penalties. The game is evolving, not by choice, but by necessity.

In that sense, robots are appealing. They don’t get concussions, they don’t hold out for bigger contracts, and they don’t spend a season recovering from a torn ACL. They don’t bet on their own games or throw matches for money (something that, regardless of your stance on gambling, requires some new solutions very quickly before this gets out of control). For leagues that now depend on gambling revenue - where integrity is both the product and the liability - a game without human corruption might sound like paradise. But what’s sport without the potential for human error, for emotion, for the collapse that makes victory meaningful?

The Quiet Infiltration, and the role of Entertainment 

Robots are already in sports - just not on the field. Table tennis players now train against robotic sparring partners capable of replicating world-class spin and precision. Football teams use robotic tackling dummies to simulate contact without risking players (The Pittsburgh Steelers were experimenting with robots as early as 2016). In baseball, pitching machines have evolved into AI systems that can replicate the exact release mechanics of a specific pitcher.

These tools don’t replace athletes just yet - they refine them. They’ve become silent co-stars in the pursuit of performance. A growing part of the game, but never the game itself. Still, it’s easy to imagine a future where this boundary fades. A world where the robots stop being the rehearsal, and start being the show.

And thats where we, as humans, often miss the point of Sport. It’s all a show. Pro sports aren’t about who’s fastest, strongest, or smartest. It’s about who we feel connected to.

When Serena Williams wins a Grand Slam, or Lionel Messi threads a pass through chaos, it’s not just skill we’re watching - it’s humanity at its peak expression. It find’s its way to instagram in a 4 second clip with a catchy viral instrumental backdrop, and it gets shared by millions - many of whom have never watched a single second of the athlete being featured. It’s the “how did they do that?” Moment. The sweat, the exhaustion, the fear of failure… all the things that make victory worth something, are part of the human experience, and the show that creates the worldwide highlight. We have the same body and the same 24 hours as the clip-worthy athlete, but we know we have NO CHANCE of ever being that great. 

The robot takes away the magic. It’s built to be better than us, with no slip ups. A perfect robot athlete might perform flawlessly, but it can’t choke under pressure, or rise above expectation, or cry when it wins. It can’t make us feel something about ourselves.

That’s the paradox of a humanoid-only sport: the better they get, the less human they become, and inevitably the less we care.

The Future: Two Possible Worlds

So will robots ever replace humans in professional sports? It depends on what we decide “sport” really is.

In one version of the future, humanoid leagues thrive. Imagine an arena filled with spectators watching NEO-athletes sprint faster than Usain Bolt, dunk more violently than LeBron, and play through conditions that would cripple a human body. Gambling, sponsorships, and fandom still exist, but the emotional currency changes. Sport becomes a laboratory for the limits of physics, not human spirit.

In the other version, robots become the backstage of sport. They exist for optimizing, assisting, and preparing the humans who remain the stars. The leagues double down on the beauty of imperfection, the drama of emotion, the fragility of flesh. The TikTok’s and Instagram reels become more important and ESPN becomes CNBC for gambling.

The truth is, both futures are possible.

The same way we watch Formula 1 for the cars and the drivers, we may someday cheer for the code and the creators.

Until then, sport will remain what it has always been — a mirror of who we are, and what we value.

And for now, at least, we still love watching people try.

Until Next Week…