🔊 Inside The $55 Million Bet On The Future Of Sportainment

🗓️ Upcoming Events

💎 New Members

Bluestone Equity Partners, a sports, media, and entertainment-focused private equity firm, has made a $55 million growth equity investment in Poolhouse, a technology-enabled cue sports company founded by Steve and Dave Jolliffe, the entrepreneurs behind Topgolf and Puttshack.

Poolhouse is bringing modern technology, game design, and data infrastructure to cue sports, one of the world's oldest and most widely played recreational sports.

The funding will primarily be geared towards accelerating the global expansion of its proprietary BillyQ technology platform and premium entertainment venues.

With more than 200 million weekly players globally and an industry-estimated total addressable market of approximately $35 billion, cue sports represent a large, global participatory category that remains meaningfully underpenetrated by technology.

Why This Matters

Topgolf changed the game for golf.

Puttshack did it for mini golf.

Now the duo behind both ideas is bringing the same concept to pool.

The sportainment space has exploded over the past decade.

Some of the most notable concepts globally include:

And although $55 million sounds like a lot to bet on an old bar sport, the numbers tell a different story.

Bluestone and the Jolliffe brothers aren't just betting on pool; they're betting on a proven playbook with massive tech upside.

Here's why it’s worth paying attention to.

Cue sports have 200 million weekly players globally.

It's also a $35 billion market growing at 5.16% CAGR.

And unlike golf, or other sportainment concepts, it's almost completely untouched by modern technology, data infrastructure, or premium venue experiences.

That's exactly the kind of opportunity the Jolliffe brothers have made a career of exploiting.

Plus, the Topgolf model proved something important: you don't need to be a serious golfer to spend money in a golf environment.

You just need an experience that's social, tech-enhanced, and visually compelling enough to bring in casual participants.

The same thinking applies to pool and other bar sports.

And what truly separates Poolhouse is its BillyQ platform, a proprietary gameplay system developed in collaboration with the team behind Hawk-Eye, the computer vision technology used to track ball trajectories, support officiating, and enable broadcast replays across major sports worldwide.

This technology is specifically designed to bring data, gamification, and premium hospitality to an activity that's historically been confined to dive bars and rec rooms.

Not to mention the huge licensing potential to distribute to other operators as a subscription hardware offering.

For the sports investing world, this is the sportainment thesis in action.

The broader idea here is that any participatory sport with a large global base and low technology penetration is a potential category to reimagine.

The Jolliffe brothers have already done it twice.

And Bluestone’s $55 million says they’ll do it again.

• Ronin Capital Invests In Detroit City FC. Detroit City FC has announced that Jay Farner, founder and CEO of Ronin Capital Partners, has made the largest single investment in the club's history through Ronin Sports & Entertainment Group. The capital will fuel the construction of AlumniFi Field, accelerate the club’s transformational mixed-use development connecting Detroit’s Corktown and Mexicantown neighborhoods, and support the club’s continued growth. Financial details were not disclosed (more here).

• Game Changer Ventures Invests In Cognify Health. Cognify Health, a healthcare platform for youth athletics, announced a Seed funding round led by Game Changer Ventures. Cognify connects families with a concussion specialist through telehealth within 24 hours and provides a full return-to-learn and return-to-play plan. The seed round will help Cognify continue building its youth sports healthcare infrastructure and expand access to specialist care for athletes and families. Financial details were not disclosed (more here).

• Urban Zoo Raises £20M. Urban Zoo, a Warrington-based sports technology company, has secured a £20 million investment from BGF to accelerate international expansion, particularly in North America. Founded in 2013, Urban Zoo provides digital platforms for sports brands, clubs, and federations across mobile, web, streaming, e-commerce, and retail. Urban Zoo currently works with over 60 professional clubs across the English and Scottish Football Leagues (more here).

• Speakeasy Raises $8.8M. Speakeasy, an operations and intelligence platform empowering live experiences and the IRL (‘in-real-life’) economy, has raised an oversubscribed $8.8 million Series A round. The round was led by Positive Sum, with participation from Yamaha’s Music Innovations Fund and other strategic investors, including co-founders and early executives from Seamless, TigerConnect, Genius, D.C. United, Swansea City FC, and Tegus. The company intends to use the funds to expand operations and its development efforts (more here).

• ENGO Raises €5.1M. ENGO, a France-based company that specializes in smart eyewear for athletes and develops ultra-lightweight heads-up display technology solutions, raised €5.1 million (approximately $5.8 million) in funding. The round was led by Ventech, Odyssée Venture, and Bpifrance Amorçage Industriel. The funds will support the company's commercial expansion and continued product development (more here).

• Refr Sports Raises $1M. Refr Sports, a referee management platform, has raised $1 million from Minnesota-based firm Traction Capital. The company builds software for the officiating industry, connecting referees, assignors, and leagues. The funding will primarily go towards national expansion (more here).

The best deals in sports never get announced.

They get done quietly, by people who know each other.

Vetted Sports is where this happens.

We’re building a private network where investors, dealmakers, and owners who are actually moving capital in this space meet.

Exclusive events, curated introductions, quality deal flow, and an advisory board stacked with some of the most prominent names in sports investing.

Membership is by application only, and spots are capped.

If you have to ask whether this is for you, it probably isn't.

If you already know, tap in with us 👉 www.vettedsports.com

• Visit Rwanda & Aston Villa Announce Partnership. Aston Villa FC has announced Visit Rwanda, the national tourism brand of the country, as the club’s Principal Partner, Official Tourism Partner, and Official Coffee Provider. Visit Rwanda’s branding will appear on the front of all men’s, women’s, and academy teams’ shirts, as well as in several other prominent spaces, under an agreement that will be the most important sponsorship deal in the club's history (more here).

• LTA & Redrice Ventures Announce Partnership. The UK’s Lawn Tennis Association (LTA), the governing body, has struck a new strategic partnership with investment firm Redrice Ventures, through which they will work together to identify and invest in tech firms to advance UK racket sports. This partnership will be spearheaded by the Redrice Sports Collective, an investor network headed by UK tennis icon Andy Murray. Murray joined Redrice as an associate partner in 2025 and is joined in the Sports collective by former Olympic triathlete Alistair Brownlee (more here).

• Texas Tech Athletics & Galaxy Announce Partnership. Texas Tech and Galaxy Digital, a global leader in digital assets and AI infrastructure, have announced a 15-year, $75 million naming rights deal to rename Texas Tech University's football stadium to Galaxy Stadium. Beginning with the 2026 season opener against Abilene Christian University on September 5th, this partnership also integrates Galaxy as the official data center and digital assets partner for Red Raider athletics (more here).

• BYU Athletics & Entrata Announce Partnership. BYU Athletics announced a historic multi-year partnership with Entrata, a Utah-based property management software company. The deal makes Entrata the first jersey patch sponsor in BYU football history, with the company's logo appearing on the upper-left shoulder of game jerseys beginning in the 2026 season. The partnership also includes community impact and student-athlete service initiatives (more here).

• Cal Athletics & Dialpad Announce Partnership. Cal Athletics announced a partnership with Dialpad, an AI customer experience platform. Through the partnership, Dialpad has also been named the Official AI Platform for Fan Experience of Cal Athletics. It is the largest corporate partnership in Golden Bears’ history, and all 30 Cal sports will wear the patch this upcoming season. Along with the jersey patch, the partnership also features naming rights to the Dialpad Field Club (the largest club space at California Memorial Stadium) (more here).

• OVG, Live Nation, SURJ Sports Investment Announce Radia. SURJ Sports Investments, the sports investment arm of Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF), has launched a venue-based joint venture with Live Nation and the Oak View Group (OVG). The joint venture, to be called Radia, will serve as an integrated venue-services provider, supporting the full lifecycle of sports venues and precincts across Saudi Arabia. The partnership comes as Saudi Arabia prepares to host the 2034 edition of the men's FIFA World Cup, for which 10 new stadiums are being constructed, and five existing venues are being renovated. These are being split between five locations: Riyadh, Jeddah, Khobar, Neom, and Abha (more here).

• Kalshi Launches Kalshi Pro. Kalshi, the world's largest prediction market platform, has announced Kalshi Pro, a trading terminal designed to address problems faced by its most active traders. The product is designed for speculators who trade multiple markets simultaneously or move quickly during live events. The platform is also designed to support resting orders, trades that don't execute until certain prices are met (more here).

• Paul Hastings Launches Global Sports Practice. Paul Hastings LLP, a law firm with offices across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, has launched a dedicated sports practice, per Sportico. The new group will operate as a subdivision of Paul Hastings’ existing entertainment and media practice. Paul Hastings' sports involvement spans major teams, leagues, and properties across the industry (more here).

• MLB Bans Teams From Using Gen AI In Dugouts. Major League Baseball has banned teams from using generative AI on league-issued dugout iPads. Teams were reportedly installing custom apps that pushed the boundaries of the technology guidelines, and the iPads were being used beyond their original purpose to include recommendations on substitutions, pitch calling, and other in-game decisions traditionally made by players and coaches (more here).

• The Rise Of Athlete Collectives. Athletes are increasingly moving beyond individual endorsements and angel investments toward collective ownership in consumer businesses. Funds like CHAMP, launched by L Catterton and Patricof, allow elite athletes to pool capital to take significant stakes in companies, leveraging their influence to build market awareness after the investment. Forbes dives deeper into this trend (more here).