🔊 Here's Why Women's Sports Are About To Explode

📰 TOP STORY
Avenue Sports Fund Partners With Mercury/13 To Acquire More Women’s Soccer Teams

• 2024 was an incredible year for women’s sports. Check out some of the biggest headlines and updates from the past year:

• WNBA secured an 11-year/$2.2B media rights deal

• League One Volleyball raised over $100M in total funding

• Unrivaled Basketball raised $35M in total funding

• Angel City Football Club was purchased by Bob & Willow Iger for $250M

• Michele Kang invested $50M in improving women's sports & performance

• The women's sports apparel market reached an estimated $4B in the US

But I believe 2025 will be even better for the space. This week it was announced that Mercury/13, a multi-club ownership group dedicated to women's soccer, and Avenue Sports Fund, a global sports investment fund founded by Marc Lasry, formed a partnership. As a result of this partnership, Avenue Sports has also made a significant investment in Mercury/13. The ultimate goal for both groups is to build the world's leading multi-club ownership group by acquiring women's soccer franchises and accelerating their commercial trajectories. In March, Mercury/13 made its inaugural acquisition in F.C. Como Women, an independent women's club competing in Italy's Serie A Femminile. Since the acquisition, Mercury/13 has been implementing a major transformation plan which includes a new management team put in place, launching a new brand identity, upgrading the training facilities, establishing a three-year technical partnership with Nike, making significant changes to the squad and technical staff, and a new title sponsor for the club.

Why is this important?

Women’s sports have been on an upward trajectory for several years, but this year we’ve seen record amounts of capital flowing towards leagues, teams, and players. I believe 2025 will be another record-breaking year in women’s sports for these 3 key reasons:

➊ The consumer demand is evident. Viewership across all women’s sports is up. Fans want more content and women’s focused media brands such as Just Women’s Sports, Togethxr and The Gist are paving the way. As they say, “Wherever attention goes, money usually flows.”

➋ The entry points are lower. You’d be hard-pressed to find an investor who could write a $500M check for an NBA or NFL team, but the average NWSL team is around $104M per Sportico. While valuations are rising, that’s a more attractive price point for an asset with long-term growth potential and upside.

➌ The untapped sponsorship opportunity. Global brands are eyeing women's sports because consumers and fans are willing to spend. While only 6% of Fortune 500 companies currently sponsor professional women's sports teams and leagues, that number will likely increase in 2025 as companies realize how undervalued and underserved the market is.

💰 MONEY MOVES 
Oura Ring Reaches $5B+ Valuation

• Oura Ring Raises $200M. ŌURA, the company behind Oura Ring, the world’s leading smart ring, announced the completion of a $200M Series D funding round this week. Fidelity Management & Research Company and Dexcom, the global leader in glucose biosensing, led in the round. The investment raises the company’s valuation to $5.2B. This new capital will help ŌURA expand its product offerings, fuel further investment in product, science, and healthcare innovation, including AI, advance global expansion efforts and explore acquisitions to accelerate growth. The company has partnered with sports organizations and teams such as NBA, NASCAR, UFC, New York Knicks, Colorado Rapids, and Real Madrid (more here).

• Unrivaled Basketball Officially Closes $28M Raise. The Series A round was led by the Berman family and included participation from basketball stars like Giannis Antetokounmpo, Dawn Staley, and JuJu Watkins. Fenway Sports partner and Boston Globe Media CEO Linda Henry, Michael Phelps, and former Milwaukee Bucks minority owner Marc Lasry also joined. Warner Bros. Discovery, which struck a multiyear media rights deal that included an investment, is also part of the round. Unrivaled's total funding is around $35M (more here).

• Jim Ratcliffe Increases Stake In Manchester United With $100M Investment. British billionaire Jim Ratcliffe has invested $100M into Manchester United just 10 months after his original limited partnership stake was approved. This investment increases his stake to 28.94% from 27.7%. It also represents the final tranche in the original agreement with the Glazer family to inject $300M into the team toward infrastructure improvements on top of his original $1.3B investment for 25% of the team (more here).

• Spiideo Acquires Signality. Spiideo, a leading AI-powered video and data solution for leagues, broadcasters, federations, and clubs announced the acquisition of Signality, an optical tracking and sports data generation company. Integrating Signality’s automated, real-time data and analytics technology into the Spiideo platform will further fuel Spiideo’s data and AI-driven products for media companies, leagues, federations, clubs, and schools. Financial details were not disclosed (more here).

• PlayersTv Acquires Cloud Media Center. PlayersTV, the first athlete-owned media company, has acquired Cloud Media Center (CMC), an AI-powered sports ad tech and media distribution company. The acquisition is expected to reshape how sports content is created, distributed, and monetized, particularly for athletes, by combining cutting-edge technology with an innovative athlete-driven media model (more here).

• NODWIN Gaming Acquires AFK Gaming. Nodwin Gaming, a gaming and esports division of India’s Nazara Technologies, has acquired AFK Gaming, a gaming and esports media company. After previously holding a 7% stake, NODWIN Gaming has now acquired full ownership of AFK Gaming, making it a wholly-owned subsidiary. As part of this transaction, AFK Gaming founders will become shareholders of NODWIN Gaming and will be integrated into different verticals in the NODWIN Gaming ecosystem (more here).

 🤝 PARTNERSHIPS
Fastbreak.ai Announces New League Partnership

• Fastbreak.ai Partners With NWSL. Fastbreak.ai, the leader in AI-driven sports scheduling technology, announced a partnership with the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL), the premier women's professional soccer league. Fastbreak.ai will handle the league's scheduling processes to enhance operational efficiency and deliver an improved experience for teams and fans (more here).

• PSG Partners With Matchain. Paris Saint-Germain (PSG), one of the world’s most iconic football clubs, and Matchain, a pioneering blockchain platform specializing in AI and decentralized identity solutions, announced the launch of the Joint Innovations Studio (JIS). The Joint Innovation Studio is redefining sports technology by merging PSG’s global influence with Matchain’s blockchain expertise to create a secure, personalized, and interactive ecosystem (more here).

• CAA Partners With YouTube. YouTube announced a partnership with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) to help actors and athletes better manage their digital likenesses in AI-generated content. Next year, actors and athletes from the NBA and NFL will have access to technology that will identify AI-generated content on YouTube that features their digital likenesses, including their faces, and give them the option of requesting it be removed through a privacy complaint process (more here).

• Pickleball Kingdom Partners With PodPlay. Pickleball Kingdom, the world's largest indoor pickleball entity, announced a partnership with PodPlay that will bring PodPlay's technology to Pickleball Kingdom's network of franchises. PodPlay’s technology delivers a seamless experience from check-in to match highlights by integrating hardware-enabled features like user-initiated video replays, real-time digital scoreboards, door access, and tools for sharing highlights directly to social media with core venue management software tailored for the pickleball market (more here).

🔊 ATHLETES & OTHER NEWS
The Washington Wizards Announce New Tech-Enabled Arena

• Washington Wizards Announce Plans For Brand New Tech-Enabled Arena. This week, Monumental Sports & Entertainment, the sports holding company founded by Ted Leonis, released renderings for a renovated Capital One Arena, home of the Washington Wizards and Washington Capitals. The renovations will cost around $515M and are expected to be completed by the start of the 2027-28 season (more here).

• Netflix Secures US Rights To FIFA Women’s World Cup. Netflix announced it has secured exclusive rights in the US to the FIFA Women’s World Cup in 2027 and 2031. The 2027 tournament is set to take place in 12 cities across Brazil. The host country for the 2031 tournament is yet to be announced. Netflix said coverage of the Women’s World Cup will include commentary and entertainment from studio shows and top-tier talent, as well as Netflix original documentaries around major players (more here).

• Eastside Golf, A Golf Apparel Brand Loved By Chris Paul & Stephen Curry Is Breaking Barriers In the Sport. Founded by former Morehouse golf teammates Olajuwon Ajanaku and Earl Cooper in 2019, Eastside Golf has become a beacon for the growth of inclusion and access to the historically exclusive sport thanks to the work of its founders, community events, and collaborations with companies like Jordan Brand, Mercedes-Benz, Nike, Rolling Loud, and more (more here).

• What The Top 75 College Sports Programs Are Worth. CNBC ranks the 75 most valuable college athletic programs. The rankings exclude military academies and are limited to schools that participate in the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision, or FBS, which tend to attract top players. Ohio State University is the most valuable athletic program, worth an estimated $1.27B. The Buckeyes generated $280M in revenue in 2023, the most of any school (more here).

• Venture Capitalist Lorine Pendleton Champions Women’s Sports In The VC World. Lorine Pendleton, founder of 125 Ventures, is focusing her fund on sports, media, and entertainment at the intersection of tech, emphasizing women's sports, a sector projected to grow by 300% by 2030, and is encouraging more women angel investors to invest in underrepresented founders (more here).

• Two-Time USWNT Gold Medalist Lauren Holiday Joins Mercury/13. Lauren Holiday, a two-time Olympic gold medalist and 2015 World Cup winner with the United States women’s national team has joined the board of Mercury/13. Her involvement comes as part of the partnership and investment from Avenue Sports Fund, which she currently advises (more here).

• Major League Table Tennis Will Add 2 Expansion Teams In 2025. Major League Table Tennis announced it will add two teams for the 2025 season, expanding from eight to 10 clubs next September. The league hasn’t revealed the locations of the new teams. The expansion marks the first major initiative since the league secured $5.5M in strategic investment from over 20 investors in October, including Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment principal David Blitzer and Philadelphia 76ers president of basketball operations Daryl Morey (more here).

• The Rise Of AI In Sports: A $2.61B Industry Dominated By Tech Giants. The global AI in Sports Market size is projected to grow from $1.03B in 2024 to $2.61B by 2030 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.7% from 2024 to 2030, according to a new report by MarketsandMarkets (more here).