🔊 The Future Of Sports Stadiums Is Here

📰 TOP STORY
Northwestern University & Ryan Sports Announce $850M Stadium Investment

• This week, Northwestern University unveiled renderings of their brand-new stadium, Ryan Field, which will open in 2026. The university said the new stadium would be "a state-of-the-art $850M sports and entertainment venue set to become a landmark for college football and Chicago.” The new stadium would be funded directly by the Ryan family without public investment. The Ryan family is a minority owner of the Chicago Bears and owns a stake in the English Premier League club AFC Bournemouth. According to ESPN, Northwestern's project for the new Ryan Field will be the "largest stadium project in college football history."

• Why is this important? Recently, I’ve been fascinated with the concept of sports organizations creating mega, mixed-use entertainment venues where fans can live, play, and work. Investing in stadiums and surrounding real estate obviously enhances the overall fan experience, but it also builds long-term, stable assets with significant financial upside. As teams transform their venues into multi-use hubs, with entertainment, retail, and residential options, it creates entirely new revenue streams that drastically increase valuations. This is the next frontier of sports ownership as Mark Cuban alluded to. With more institutional capital coming into sports, owners and executives will allocate more capital toward developing venues like this over the next several years. A prime example is what the Atlanta Braves have done with Battery Park and the Milwaukee Bucks with Deer District.

Here are a few stadium developments in pro sports that are currently underway:

• New Highmark Stadium (Buffalo Bills)

• New Nissan Stadium (Tennesee Titans)

• Scotiabank Saddledome (Calgary Flames)

• Miami Freedom Park (Inter Miami FC)

• New York City FC Stadium (New York City FC)

Here are a few other pro teams that are or could be in line to open new venues in 2028 and beyond:

• Chicago Bears

• Washington Commanders

• Arizona Coyotes

• Oklahoma City Thunder

• Washington Wizards/Capitals

• Philadelphia 76ers

• Kansas City Royals

• Tampa Bay Rays

💰 MONEY MOVES 
League One Volleyball (LOVB) Raises New Round Of Funding

• LOVB Raises $100M. League One Volleyball, branded as LOVB and pronounced "LOVE," recently announced an $100M raise from Los Angeles-based private equity firm Atwater Capital joined by existing New York-based investors Ares Management and Left Lane Capital. The new investment is in addition to the $60M LOVB has raised from Olympic skier Lindsey Vonn, basketball stars Candace Parker and Kevin Durant, and entertainers Amy Schumer and Chelsea Handler among others. LOVB Pro will begin play on January 8th with teams in Atlanta; Houston; Salt Lake City; Austin, Texas; Madison, Wisconsin; and Omaha, Nebraska. Among the players are 17 Olympians, including 10 members of the 2024 silver medal-winning Team USA (more here).

• Ladder Raises $100M. Ladder, the #1 iOS app for strength training, announced a $15M Series B funding round led by Point72 Ventures and ADvantage VC, with participation from Steve Pagliuca’s PagsGroup and Series A lead investors Tapestry VC and LivWell Ventures. Ladder has also secured an additional $90M in growth investment from General Catalyst’s Customer Value strategy, to support customer acquisition costs (more here).

• Michele Kang Investa $30M Into U.S. Soccer. Businesswoman, team owner, and women’s sports advocate Michele Kang is donating $30M to U.S. Soccer, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit over the next five years which is the largest philanthropic investment in U.S. Soccer’s women’s and girls’ programs and the most generous donation ever made to U.S. Soccer by a woman. The investment from Kang will scale competitive opportunities for youth players, expand and improve talent identification, and fuel professional development for female players, coaches, and referees (more here).

• Fanstake Raises $3M. Fanstake, a platform that enables college sports fans to influence athlete recruitment and retention directly, recently raised a $3M pre-seed from Will Ventures and Susa Ventures. Multiple other firms and angel investors, including executives from LinkedIn and Headspace, also participated. The company was founded by Greg Glass, Alex Boisvert, and Donnie Flood in 2024 (more here).

• Captain Experiences Raises $1.5M. Captain Experiences, an Austin, TX-based outdoor sports marketplace company, received a $1.5M investment from Mercurius Media Capital. The company intends to use the funds to enhance brand visibility further and expand its reach in key U.S. markets. Jonathan Newar founded the company in 2019 (more here).

• Hippos Exoskeleton Raises $642K. Hippos Exoskeleton, a “knee sleeve” that measures stress on the knee joint and inflates around the knee to protect it from major injuries, recently raised a $642K pre-seed round from Possible Ventures and Silicon Roundabout Ventures. Also participating in the round were Huggingface’s co-founder and CSO, Thomas Wolf; Wayve’s co-founder Amar Shah, and Dr. James Brown, the lead sports medicine doctor at UK Athletics. The company was founded by Kylin Shaw and Bhavy Metakar (more here).

 🤝 PARTNERSHIPS
Lebron James’ Media Company Merges With Kardashian Producer

• SpringHill & Fulwell 73 Form Merger. SpringHill is merging with Fulwell 73, and SpringHill co-founder Maverick Carter will become co-CEO of the combined company, along with Fulwell managing partner Leo Pearlman. SpringHill has largely focused on producing sports-related content, while Fulwell focuses on broader entertainment, including making “The Kardashians” and “Carpool Karaoke.” Investors include Fenway Sports Group, RedBird Capital Partners, UC Investments, Nike, and Epic Games (more here).

• MLB Partners With Sportradar. Sportradar, a global sports technology company, has entered into a multi-year agreement with the MLB to augment the league's scouting of amateur baseball talent through its Synergy Coaching and Scouting solution. The partnership aims to transform the evaluation of player potential using Sportradar's advanced technological platform. The deal grants MLB and its 30 clubs access to an extensive range of player analysis and insights, with event coverage expanding from 3,300 to over 20,000 games (more here).

• ALT Sports Data, Inc. Partners With The Curling Group. ALT Sports Data, Inc., a leader in trading and consumer data for action, alternative, and emerging sports, has teamed up with The Curling Group, owners of the Grand Slam of Curling, to become the exclusive global provider of The Curling Group’s data for sports betting worldwide. ALT Sports Data will spearhead the development of The Curling Group's innovative data infrastructure, enabling low-latency capture, and distribution of scoring, statistics, and other vital event data (more here).

• San Antonio Spurs Partner With Shift4. The San Antonio Spurs announced a new partnership with Shift4, a leader in integrated payments and commerce technology, making it the team’s official integrated payment technology partner. Shift4’s payment technology will be integrated into transactions at Frost Bank Center and Toyota Field events as part of the partnership. The technology will provide a fast and seamless experience for ticketing and concessions purchases made by fans at both venues, including kiosk ordering, and artificial intelligence self-checkout (more here). 

🔊 ATHLETES & OTHER SPORTS NEWS
Former F1 Champion Crosses $100M AUM

• How F1 Champion Nico Rosberg Scored $100M For A New VC Fund. The 39-year-old racing legend’s fame gets him in the door with the world’s top investment firms. Now he’s betting that access can pay off for wealthy Europeans looking for a way into Silicon Valley. In April, his Monaco-based firm Rosberg Ventures announced the creation of a “fund of funds,” which pools capital and deploys it primarily through other VC firms, rather than investing directly in startups (more here).

• Giannis Antetokounmpo Launches A Venture Capital Fund. The Milwaukee Bucks superstar announced the launch of Build Your Legacy Ventures, a venture capital fund that will focus on investments in sports, entertainment, and technology. The fund has already invested in Unrivaled Basketball. Antetokounmpo is also an investor in the Milwaukee Brewers, Nashville SC, and LA Golf Club (more here).

• Michael Jordan Invests In Courtside Ventures. Jordan has invested an undisclosed amount in the fourth fund of Courtside Ventures, a firm focused on sports, media, entertainment, technology, and gaming founded by Deepen Parikh and Vasu Kulkarni. With over $200M in assets under management, Courtside Ventures’ portfolio includes companies such as Veo (hardware and software subscription); Winzo (social gaming); The Athletic (sports media brand); and Betty (social casino platform), among others (more here).

• Eli Manning, Derek Jeter & Jimmy Fallon Join TGL New York Golf Club Investor Group. Cohen Private Ventures, the family office of Steve Cohen, announced that Eli Manning, Derek Jeter, CC Sabathia, and Jimmy Fallon are joining the New York Golf Club’s investor group. TGL is the new primetime, high-tech golf league launched by Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, and former Golf Channel executive Mike McCarley (more here).

• Juan Mata Joins San Diego FC Ownership Group. San Diego FC announced Spanish international football legend and World Cup champion Juan Mata has joined as a Partner in their ownership group. Mata is the first active international soccer player to hold an ownership stake in an MLS franchise and joins David Beckham as only the second international player to be involved in MLS ownership (more here).

• Chicago Bears Unveil Virtual History Tour. This week, the club launched a virtual tour of its celebrated history and tradition displayed exclusively at Halas Hall. It will give fans a chance to virtually enter the Halas Hall lobby, allowing them to explore the life of the legendary George Halas along with the careers of the franchise's NFL record 32 members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame through memorabilia and artifacts from the organization's historical archives (more here).

• All Clubs In The Top Four European Soccer Tiers Could Be US-Owned. All of the clubs in the Premier League and English Football League could be owned by American investors in the next five to 10 years, according to a soccer investment expert. Several clubs in the top four tiers have either been taken over or received investment from across the Atlantic in the past few years (more here).

• The Opportunity In Women’s Sports. Women’s professional sports are at the precipice of a potentially massive transformation. Buoyed by accelerating trends that place a premium on live TV sports content, rising and established stars in multiple sports—such as Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, Simone Biles, Coco Gauff, and Alex Morgan—are supercharging momentum that has been building for years (more here).

• More Investors Are Putting Money Into Women’s Sports Teams. A New Study Finds It Could ‘Unlock Billions’ In Value. Team valuations for the NWSL jumped by 57% in the past year (alongside some eye-popping purchases and investments), and the first valuation report of the WNBA found its teams worth a collective $1.16B, per Sportico. Investors are paying record sums for new teams in the two leagues, although announced expansion has been deliberate and is slowing down, which may push entry fees even higher (more here).

• PlaySight Launches Automated AI Highlights. PlaySight, a global leader in sports video and analytics technology, has launched its Automated AI Highlights feature for players and racquet sports clubs that create automatic highlight videos for players and clubs to access and share within minutes. The Automated AI Highlights feature leverages PlaySight’s existing SmartCourt AI technology, which automatically tracks the player and the ball, analyzing their position speed, and performance (more here).

• CNBC Releases Official 2024 NHL Team Valuations. The average NHL team is worth $1.92B, according to CNBC’s Official 2024 NHL Valuations, and recent transactions come at revenue multiples that rival deals done in Major League Baseball. What accounts for the league’s ascension? Steady revenue growth combined with a hard salary cap and a leaguewide revenue-sharing system all but ensure profitability for the league’s 32 teams (more here).

💬 INTERVIEWS
Meet The Founders & Innovators Building The Future Of Sports

• How Dryvebox Is Transforming How People Experience Golf. One of the biggest problems with golfing is the price and finding and getting to a course. But what if the course could come to you? Introducing Dryvebox. Dryvebox is making playing golf easier and more affordable by offering a fully mobile, on-demand solution that brings the driving range right to your doorstep. No need for memberships or long drives to the course. You just sign up, and a state-of-the-art golf simulator will show up at your location, ready to go. In our conversation with Dryvebox co-founder Adeel Yang, we talked about the inspiration behind Dryvebox, how the company is changing the game, and the future of golf as they continue to innovate and make the sport more accessible to players of all levels (more here).