🔊 Kevin Durant Buys Another Soccer Team

📰 TOP STORY
Kevin Durant Buys Minority Stake In Paris Saint-German Soccer Club

• Kevin Durant is set to become a minority shareholder in the football powerhouse Paris Saint-Germain. During the Olympics in Paris, Durant met with the team President Nasser Al-Khelaifi, players, and staff from both the men's and women's teams. He also spent time with the young talents from the club's Training Center and children from the PSG Foundation. PSG is the largest soccer club in France's top league. It has been crowned Ligue 1 champions 10 times since the 2012-13 campaign, including in the last three seasons, and a mainstay in the UEFA Champions League. PSG has been owned by Qatar Sports Investments since 2011 and was valued at around £4.5B ($5.7B) in 2023 when Arctos Partners bought a 12.5% stake in the club. Durant will invest in the club through his fund Boardroom Sports Holdings, LLC via Arctos Partners. He also has stakes in teams such as the Philadelphia Union, Gotham FC, and Brooklyn Aces (more here).

💰 MONEY MOVES 
Hudl Officially Acquires Statsbomb

• Hudl Completes Statsbomb Acquisition. Hudl, which provides cloud-based technology connecting video and data for the sports industry, has described the acquisition as an opportunity to bolster its professional suite with ‘advanced data analytics’ and enable ‘deeper actionable insights for football and American football teams.’ StatsBomb has grown into a global data business, offering advanced sports data services for soccer and, more recently, American football. The company started as an analytics blog and initially progressed to consulting on data-driven recruitment and performance analysis for professional teams (more here).

• Dallas Cowboys Become First Franchise To Be Worth Over $10B. Sportico released franchise valuations for the top 10 NFL teams on Tuesday, and the Cowboys were atop the list with a value of $10.32B. They became the first sports franchise to surpass the $10B valuation. Forbes valued the Cowboys at $9B in September. The Los Angeles Rams ($7.79B) ranked second on the list by Sportico, followed by the New York Giants ($7.65B), New England Patriots ($7.31B) and San Francisco 49ers ($6.86B) to round out the top 5 (more here).

• Fortuna Investments Launches Women’s Sports Investment Platform. Fortuna Investments, a VC and advisory firm focused on high-growth industries, announced the launch of a new investment platform dedicated to providing resources to support women’s professional sports, at a time of exciting and rapid expansion in the sector. The platform will target opportunities across the spectrum of women's sports, including team ownership, financing, stadium development, sports media, and other related businesses. The platform will initially target $10-$50M equity investments in the WNBA (more here).

• Drake Joins APEX To Invest In Venezia FC. APEX, a leading firm investing in companies reshaping the landscape of sports and entertainment, has been joined by global music icon Drake in the group of new investors in Venezia FC. The collaboration between Drake and this group of investors signals a new chapter for Venezia FC, including the announcement that Nocta, a brand owned by the international music star, will be Venezia’s FC official kit partner (more here).

• Range Media Partners Secures Growth Capital From Verance Capital. Range Media Partners, the global talent representation and production firm, which includes its rapidly growing sports division, Range Sports, announced that it has secured a minority investment from Verance Capital, a New York-based growth investment firm focused on sports, media, and entertainment. Verance joins Range’s recently announced new strategic investor group, including Liberty Global, New York-based family office Wildcat Capital Management, and family entertainment company Playground Productions (more here).

• Avenue Sports Fund Invests In Ipswich Town Football Club. Marc Lasry’s Avenue Sports Fund recently announced that it has partnered with Bright Path Sports Partners following its 44% acquisition of Gamechanger 20 Ltd, the owner of Ipswich Town Football Club. Ipswich Town competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football (more here).

 🤝 PARTNERSHIPS
Genius Sports Partners With Premier League To Launch Semi-Automated Officiating

• Genius Sports Announces Partnership With The Premier League. Genius Sports and the Premier League are teaming up to implement Semi-Automated Offside Technology (SAOT) starting from the 2024-25 season. This move promises to enhance the speed and accuracy of offside decisions, a common point of contention in matches. With Genius Sports’ advanced AI and data platform, GeniusIQ, every Premier League stadium will have high-tech computer vision cameras to ensure precise decision-making (more here).

• SSC Napoli Partners With The Sandbox. SSC Napoli announced a partnership with The Sandbox, a leader in the creation of virtual worlds for decentralized gaming. This collaboration represents SSC Napoli's first step into the metaverse and heralds a new and exciting chapter in the globalization of the Napoli brand. Through this partnership, SSC Napoli will establish its presence in The Sandbox, offering fans a unique and immersive experience. The metaverse will feature the first-ever SSC Napoli official metaverse store, providing supporters from around the globe with access to exclusive digital merchandise, virtual experiences, and interactive events (more here).

• Concacaf Signs Multi-Year Partnership With Saudi Arabia’s PIF. North American soccer’s governing body Concacaf has entered into a multi-year strategic partnership with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. Through a deal unveiled this week, the PIF has added Concacaf to its list of existing sporting partners, including English soccer’s Newcastle United, tennis’ ATP and WTA, and the Formula E, Extreme E, and E1 electric racing series. The agreement will aim to “grow football at every level of the game in North America,” both parties have said, across the various Concacaf national team and club tournaments and soccer development initiatives (more here).

• Crypto.com Secures Multi-Year Sponsorship Deal With UEFA Champions League. Crypto.com has become the first cryptocurrency platform to secure an exclusive partnership with the UEFA Champions League. The multi-year global sponsorship will include in-stadium activations, broadcast integrations, and a series of advertising campaigns (more here).

• NCAA Signs Multi-Year Deal With Veritone. The NCAA has reached a multiyear agreement to make AI solution company Veritone the official global archive of record and exclusive, worldwide footage agent for all NCAA championship content. Veritone’s digital media hub platform will help organize media assets across the NCAA’s championships, making content easily searchable for key stakeholders such as broadcasters, member institutions, marketing and social media teams (more here).

• Toptracer Named Official Ball-Tracing Technology Partner Of TMRW Sports. Toptracer, a cutting-edge technology system that transforms the traditional driving range experience by tracking the flight of a golf ball, was recently named the Official Ball-Tracing Partner of TGL, the new team golf league backed by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy’s TMRW Sports. Toptracer’s ball-tracing capabilities are a central part of TGL’s technology mix, which incorporates Toptracer’s camera sensors to track ball flights on the tee and approach shots taken into TGL’s massive screen and accurately extrapolate the remaining trajectory of each shot (more here).

• Omni Hotels & Resorts Partners With Noteefy. Noteefy, the leading automated tee time waitlist and assistant technology company, and Omni Hotels & Resorts, the official hotel of the PGA TOUR and PGA of America, have formed a new strategic partnership to transform the golf tee time process at select Omni Golf Collection destinations. The collaboration enhances the guest experience by allowing golfers to receive real-time notifications about tee time availability tailored to their playing preferences using Noteefy’s state-of-the-art platform (more here).

• Deloitte & IOC Expand Worldwide Olympic Partnership. Deloitte, the global professional services firm, has expanded its worldwide Olympic partnership with the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The company will become the technology integration partner for the Olympic Games, the Paralympics, and the Youth Olympics. The agreement will cover the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano-Cortina and 2030 edition in the French Alps, as well as the summer games in Los Angeles in 2028 and Brisbane in 2032 (more here).

🔊 ATHLETES & OTHER SPORTS NEWS
Olympians Gain Millions Of Followers After Paris

• New Data Shows The Olympic Athletes Breaking Out On Social Media. The 2024 Paris Olympics are catapulting the careers of breakout athletes like gold-medal-winning gymnast Rebeca Andrade, who has gained a massive wave of followers and engagement from the Games. Social media played a bigger role than ever in the Olympics this year, as audiences turn to apps like TikTok and Instagram for coverage, and athletes become influencers to leverage their biggest moments. To measure the growth of some of the Paris Games stars, Business Insider gathered data from the social-media management platform Metricool and Sprout Social, an influencer marketing and social intelligence company (more here).

• Zoomph Launches Zoomph Broadcast. Zoomph Broadcast is an updated dashboard and reporting tool for analyzing sports viewership and partnerships. Zoomph is taking broadcast measurement to the next level, providing customers access to all critical broadcast metrics with industry-leading speed and accuracy (more here).

• Sony Launches FavoriteSpace. This week, Sony launched FavoriteSpace, a new service designed to energize sports fan communities by offering new ways to enjoy sports. FavoriteSpace will deliver new sports content and create a social entertainment space where fans can share their passion for their favorites (more here).

• Gamblers Are Dumping Stocks To Bet On Sports, New Study Says. As sports gambling takes off in the US, turning quickly into a multi-billion dollar business, a worrisome trend is starting to emerge: Americans appear to be yanking money out of their stock-brokerage accounts to fund their online betting (more here).

• A New Landscape: Negotiating Equity Deals In Sports & Entertainment. Celebrity endorsements typically work as a one-way street; athletes, actors, and influencers lend their star power to a brand in exchange for a hefty upfront fee. However, the landscape is shifting, and we’re seeing athletes opt instead for a new avenue of compensation through equity deals with long-term potential (more here).

• Sports Analytics Market Forecast To Grow At 23.8% CAGR From 2024 To 2031. SkyQuest projects that the global Sports Analytics Market will reach a value of $4.75B by 2031, a 23.8% CAGR over the forecast period (2024-2031). The increasing use of on-field data for team performance analysis, player tracking, injury monitoring, and optimizing individual player strength and conditioning regimens is expected to fuel demand for the sports analytics market over the projected period (more here).

• IOC, Team USA Use New Technology To Promote Athlete Mental Wellness, Even After Olympics Are Over. Even though the Paris Games are over, a commitment to the mental health of athletes is not. While it’s the pinnacle of sporting achievement, the Olympics create a pressure-filled environment for athletes that almost no other competition can mimic. The IOC and Team USA are proactive in protecting the athletes’ mental health as well as finding ways to help block out social media attacks. The Paris Olympics highlighted that mental health awareness continues to grow through therapy, high-tech relaxation, and AI (more here).

• Tennis Fans Can Invest In Players Through The Commonwealth Platform. Founded in 2019, Commonwealth says it has a community of more than 17,000 members. The company initially launched in horse racing before expanding into golf, offering investments in young players Joey Vrzich and Cooper Dossey, and the Grass League team Hollywood Hitters. Commonwealth’s platform aims to give prospects financial backing, while offering investors the chance of ROI and the opportunity to closely follow their chosen athletes’ journey, providing a unique fan experience (more here).