SuperDebate
The world loves to argue.SuperDebate turns it into organized competition.
John Connor, Founder & CEO · superdebate.org
02 / 15 — THE PROBLEM
Debate is culturally everywhere.Structurally, it disappears after school.
People debate politics, culture, business, technology, identity, and the future, on podcasts, stages, campuses, group chats, and in the rooms where decisions get made. But after school, there is no serious adult circuit.
01
No clubs.
02
No rankings.
03
No championships.
04
No path to compete.
Debate has attention. It does not have a league.
03 / 15 — THE SOLUTION
We give debate the architecture of a league.
01 / Clubs
Train.
Recurring places to train, compete, and build community.
02 / Formats
Compete.
Clear rules, timed rounds, visible judging. The same game every time.
03 / Championships
Earn status.
Stakes, progression, and titles competitors can chase.
04 / Platform
Scale.
Discovery, live video debate, profiles, rankings, events, archives, media.
Debate becomes something people can join, follow, and get better at.
04 / 15 — WHY NOW
Three forces make the category ready.
Force 01 / Attention
Clashes pull crowds.
Debate clips, podcasts, political clashes, creator disputes, and reaction videos already pull massive audiences.
Force 02 / Community
Social competition is back.
Pickleball, run clubs, chess, poker, and rec leagues prove the demand for structured competition and belonging.
Force 03 / AI
Human judgment got rare.
As synthetic content gets cheaper, live reasoning, judgment, and persuasion become more valuable, not less.
The behavior is already mainstream. The structure is missing.
05 / 15 — THE OPPORTUNITY
A league for the oldest contest.
Every spectator sport was once a raw human contest. Then someone built the league that gave it rules, rankings, and stars.
Fighting
UFC
Poker
WSOP
Chess
FIDE · Chess.com
Debate
SuperDebate
Debate has every ingredient those have: skill, rivalry, preparation, performance, judgment, drama, and status. It has never had the league.
SuperDebate is that league.
06 / 15 — THE EXPERIENCE
The room is the product.
A sharp resolution drops. Teams prep all week. The room fills.
Two sides clash in timed rounds. Judges score live. The crowd feels every point.
A winner is named. The debate spills into the night. The clips travel.
Round 03 of 04 · 04:12
Pro
28.5
Con
27.0
Resolution
“This house would let AI vote in its place.”
SuperDebate makes debate feel like an event.
07 / 15 — THE PLATFORM
The platform makes the league repeatable.
SuperDebate supports in-person events and live video debate. Every new club starts with the system: discovery, scheduling, judging, profiles, rankings, archives. Not from scratch.
For competitors
Learn & compete.
Find opponents, train with lessons and drills, compete, and climb the rankings.
For organizers
Launch & run.
Stand up a club, schedule events, coordinate judges, and grow a local community.
For spectators
Follow & watch.
Track topics, watch matches, follow personalities, and follow the season.
08 / 15 — THE MARKET
Bigger than debate alumni.
Start with the wedge
Debate-native
Former debaters, coaches, judges, and tournament communities. They already speak the language and show up first.
Then competitors
Rec-league players
Pickleball, chess, poker, and trivia leagues. Millions already pay to compete on a schedule.
Then professionals
Persuaders
Lawyers, founders, executives, educators, and creators who win or lose on argument.
Then the audience
Spectators
The crowd already watching debate clips, podcasts, and public clashes online.
Former debaters are the wedge. The larger market is everyone drawn to sharper, more social competition.
09 / 15 — TRACTION
What's live today
The circuit is already running.
12+
Live events
4
Cities
250+
Competitors & members
Already built
Brand · Platform · Operating model · Championship format
Where we've run
Chicago · Portland · Bali · Roatán
Infinita Championship · 7 countries · $850 prize pool
10 / 15 — BUSINESS MODEL
Three ways the league makes money.
Revenue 01 / Recurring
Membership dues
Monthly dues from club members. Predictable, recurring, and the base the whole league compounds on.
Revenue 02 / Events
Tickets & sponsors
Ticketed championships and tournaments, with local-to-national brands sponsoring the rooms where status is on the line.
Revenue 03 / Expansion
Training & media
Corporate and school training, subscriptions, and media rights once the audience and archive are built.
Recurring dues fund the base. Events, training, and media scale the upside.
11 / 15 — GROWTH
From clubs to a global circuit.
Year 1
20 active cities
City leads. Recurring events. Flagship debates. Local sponsor tests. The launch engine in place.
Year 2
150+ active clubs
Ambassadors. Partner venues. Regional tournaments. National championships. Live video debate.
Year 3
Global expansion
International cities. Global championships. Major sponsors. Media distribution. Personalities.
12 / 15 — DEFENSIBILITY
One-off debates do not make a league.
Content · the status quo
Watched, then forgotten.
Creators, podcasts, Munk, and Intelligence Squared make great debate content. But viewership doesn't compound: an episode drops, attention scatters, and nothing is left behind.
Infrastructure · SuperDebate
Competed in. Returned to.
Clubs, formats, rankings, profiles, championships, and city communities. Competitors come back, improve, recruit others, and build an identity inside the league.
The moat is the network of people competing, not the content they watch.
13 / 15 — TEAM & ADVISORS
The right experience to build this.
Founder & CEO
John Connor
- Debate champion. Coached the first Urban Debate League team to win a national championship.
- Founder of Sparkblox, $1M+ raised. Product lead at Upland during 15x growth and 300K+ MAU.
- Built SuperDebate’s platform, brand, format, and operating model.
Chief Strategy Officer
Brian J. Esposito
- Founder & CEO of Esposito Intellectual Enterprises: 110+ entities across 25+ industries.
- Leads capital strategy, partnerships, sponsor architecture, and expansion relationships.
Advisors
Brand & culture
Stephen "Stix" Nilsen
20+ years building category-defining lifestyle brands. Operator-level work at Red Bull, Pabst Blue Ribbon, and Liquid Death: the playbook for turning a niche behavior into a cultural movement people wear, watch, and talk about.
Partnerships & sponsorship
Matthew Rolnick
SVP Partnerships at Real American Beer; former partnership lead at Yaymaker and Groupon. Specialist in attaching national consumer brands to live experiences and recurring events at scale.
Competition design
Dr. Iain Lampert
National champion debater, elite coach, and founder of Authentalk; COO at ModernBrain. Designs the formats, judging rubrics, and progression mechanics that make rounds feel fair and skill compound across a season.
AI & pedagogy
John Hines
Co-founder of DebaterHub. Builds AI-supported debate training used by students, coaches, and institutions, connecting how people actually get better with the live circuit.
14 / 15 — INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY
Raising $500K.
Standard SAFE · 24-month runway
What this round delivers
Year 1
20 cities
Year 2
150+ clubs
Outcome
A national league model
Use of funds
60%
Growth
City expansion, ambassadors, partnerships, sponsorship, launch marketing.
20%
Competitions
Flagship debates, regional tournaments, city championships, production.
10%
Product
Reliability, scalability, security, analytics, user experience.
10%
Operations
Legal, accounting, creative, contractors, core overhead.
This round funds the launch engine.
The invitation
Build the league for live debate with us.
Put debate back at the center of public life, and build something that outlasts us all.