Weekly Roundup: Business of Athletes, Sports, & NIL (April 17-30)
Weekly Roundup: Business of Athletes, Sports, & NIL (April 17-30)
Lots of noteworthy developments to close out April including...
Business of Athletes
Serena Williams announced the launch of 926 Productions and secured a first-look deal with Amazon Studios.
Former NFL linebacker, Jaylon Smith is investing in JINYA and opening one of their ramen bars on Notre Dame’s campus.
Steph Curry invested in the Series C round of Super, a financial savings app.
Soccer stars Riqui Puig and Clement Lenglet have invested in the $20M Series A of Goals, a Swedish esports game.
Naomi Osaka’s media company Hana Kuma raised a $5M Series A which included an investment from Lebron James.
NIL/College Sports
LSU women’s basketball star Angel Reese signed a NIL deal with Caktus AI, they are labeled as the first-ever AI-assisted educational tool.
LinkingCoogs has brokered a $1 million NIL deal for Houston football with Daspit Law Firm.
Arch Manning is using NIL to motivate himself — saying he won’t take any money until he’s the starting QB at Texas.
Sports Business
TicketRev, a reverse ticketing marketplace, has received $1.1M in seed funding including an investment from the Minnesota Twins.
Vayner Sports has announced the launch of VaynerBasketball. Bay Frazier, who worked alongside Carmelo Anthony will serve as the President and CEO.
Religion of Sports has acquired Jiva Maya, a UK-based production company to continue building out its sports media brand.
Talent agency, Wasserman has launched a venture division.
Karate Combat has secured $18 million in funding to further develop its (mixed reality) XR technology blending real-time virtual effects with live sports.
Yahoo acquired Wagr, a peer-to-peer sports betting app focused on making gaming social and accessible.
Private Equity firm EQT has purchased IMG Academy from Endeavor for $1.25B.
Interesting Stat
More good news for the sports tech ecosystem…
BlueWeave Consulting expects the global sports technology market size to grow at a robust CAGR of 19.73% over the next 7 years.
Hitting a value of USD $47.25 billion by 2029.
Short Passage of The Week
Greatness needs no reason to rush.
It will announce itself naturally when the moment is right:
Find no shame in going back to the root and beginning again.
Find no shame in rerouting because the path you took no longer gives you life.
Find no shame in admitting that you made mistakes along the way.
Find no shame in starting over.
Source: Billy Chapata, Velvet Dragonflies
Interesting Fact #2
Not sure why, but I found this interesting (and think you will as well).
The plane & operator for every MLB team:
Business Jargon
Some tips, tricks, & tools to travel hack as efficiently as possible (especially for founders out there trying to save on burn):
1) For finding reward seats (Seats.Aero)
Can search 365 days out for flights and gives you the status of availability for econ, business, and first from all routes.
2) Consolidate all award programs for specific destinations (Roame Travel )
3) Credit Card Hacking
Chase Preferred for 3x dining and travel Chase Freedom for 1.5x all other purchases to maximize being able to transfer points to travel partners.
4) Tracking award redemptions for hotel programs (Max My Point)
Section via Jonathan Chang
Quote
“We cannot solve problems with the kind of thinking we employed when we came up with them.” — Albert Einstein
Thanks for tuning in today! Let’s have a great month in May.
Peace,
-AP