🔊 Superstar Athlete Drops More Digital Assets Despite Lawsuit

📰 TOP STORY
Cristiano Ronaldo Drops 4th NFT Collection With Binance Despite $1B Lawsuit Looming

• Here’s The Rundown On Ronaldo’s 4th NFT Collection. The global soccer superstar continues his Web3 foray by launching a new NFT collection with Binance commemorating his path from humble beginnings to football stardom. The collection called “Forever Worldwide: The Road to Saudi Arabia” features a series of NFTs representing Ronaldo’s journey from a teenage prodigy in Madeira to his pivotal impact at Manchester United and Real Madrid. Ronaldo's partnership with Binance has not been without numerous challenges. Currently, he is involved in a class-action lawsuit in a US district court in Florida, from his earlier involvement in NFT sales with Binance. The plaintiffs claim that Ronaldo's endorsement influenced their investment decisions, leading to substantial financial losses. They are seeking damages over $1B. Several other athletes have faced scrutiny and lawsuits regarding digital assets over the past couple of years, including Steph Curry and Shaquille O’Neal (more here).

💰 MONEY MOVES 
WNBA Stars Breanna Stewart & Napheesa Collier Announce New Pro Women’s Basketball League

• Unrivaled Launches & Closes Round Of Funding From Sports & Media Investors. The lengthy list of investors includes media executives such as former ESPN president John Skipper, ex-Turner president David Levy, and former Warner Bros. CEO Ann Sarnoff, as well athletes including NBA All-Star Carmelo Anthony, Steve Nash, and others invested through the venture capital firm led by U.S women’s national soccer team captain Alex Morgan. The league, which will run in the months before the WNBA season and be played in a new format, aims to offer athletes another option to play basketball in the U.S. during the offseason and help boost salaries for women basketball players (more here).

• Pro League Network Secures $2.2M. Pro League Network has raised $2.2M to bring betting opportunities to niche sports like slapfighting, CarJitsu, and streetball. Founded in 2022 by Mike Salvaris and Bill Yucatonis, PLN is well-known for commercializing more obscure sports like minigolf, regulating them for gambling purposes, and capitalizing on the novelty of its offerings to differentiate itself from the competition (more here).

• Sports Apparel Maker Technosport Raises $25M In Funding. Bengaluru-headquartered Techno Sportswear has raised about $25M from A91 Partners. The company manufactures performance wear targeted at the masses and markets its sportswear apparel under the name Technosport (more here).

• Reichmann Segal Capital Partners Announces Acquisition Of Athletica Sport Systems. Reichmann Segal Capital Partners, a Toronto-based private equity firm, announced the acquisition of Athletica Sport Systems Inc., a global leader in dasher board manufacturing and sports infrastructure systems and services. Athletica is the preferred rink equipment supplier to the National Hockey League and the American Hockey League. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed (more here).

• Galway Holdings Launches GalwayPlus Sports + Entertainment. Galway Holdings, a diversified financial services distribution platform, announced the launch of a new brand: GalwayPlus Sports + Entertainment. GalwayPlus represents a first-of-its-kind sports and entertainment platform within the wealth and risk management landscape designed to serve the complex needs of individuals, teams, leagues, and organizations operating within the sectors. ESPN talent and Improbable Media co-founder & chairman Jay Williams will be instrumental in GalwayPlus’ differentiated approach to serving the sports, entertainment, and media industries (more here).

 🤝 PARTNERSHIPS
TicketRev Announces Multi-Year Partnership

• TicketRev & Miami Marlins Announce Multi-Year Partnership. The partnership will bring back Make Your Pitch and the launch of Seat Upgrades. Make Your Pitch allows fans to name their own price for tickets while Seat Upgrades allows fans to upgrade their current seats to an improved location for Marlins home games. By integrating TicketRev's white-label solutions with the Marlins, the organization can offer their fans unparalleled experiences at loanDepot Park (more here).

• Full Swing Becomes The Official Launch Monitor & Simulator Of Stephen Curry's UNDERRATED Golf Tour. Full Swing, an indoor golf simulation technology leader, announced their partnership with Steph Curry and his UNDERRATED Golf tour. The Full Swing KIT will provide athletes with 16 points of radar-powered club and ball data paired with high-resolution video of their swing to see improvement from week to week throughout the tour (more here).

• League One Volleyball Partners With Onrise. League One Volleyball (LOVB), the largest brand in youth volleyball with its professional volleyball league launching in the US later this year, announced a partnership with Onrise, a leading athlete-specific mental health company, to provide comprehensive mental health care to its players and coaches throughout the year (more here).

• ICC & FanCraze Extend Partnership. The International Cricket Council (ICC) global governing body has extended its partnership with FanCraze, an Indian NFT platform. The announcement also features the upcoming launch of ICC Crictos SuperTeam, a Web3 fantasy game featuring officially licensed ICC digital video collectibles. With SuperTeam, fans can build fantasy teams using their ICC Crictos and compete in contests to win rewards daily (more here).

🔊 ATHLETES & OTHER SPORTS NEWS
MLB Adds Negro Leagues Stats To Its Record Books

• Negro League Stats Integrated Into MLB Records. The MLB has officially incorporated Negro Leagues statistics into the Major League record, the league announced Wednesday. MLB elevated the Negro Leagues to "Major League" status in 2020 and recognized the "statistics and records" of approximately 3,400 players who played in the Negro Leagues between 1920-48. As a result of the integration, Negro Leagues legend Josh Gibson is now baseball's all-time leader in career batting average (more here).

• David Beckham Signs Deal With AliExpress. AliExpress, the international e-commerce site owned by Alibaba, is bringing on soccer star David Beckham as a brand ambassador. The Chinese giant is upping its efforts to appeal to a global audience as rivals like Temu and Shein continue to gain popularity abroad (more here).

• Soccer Star Keisuke Honda Sets Up $100 Million Japan VC Fund. Former star soccer player Keisuke Honda, a rare Japanese athlete-turned-angel-investor, is in talks to raise as much as ¥15 billion ($100 million) for his first fund wholly dedicated to startups in his home country. The X&KSK Fund plans to invest in about 30 Japanese startups (more here).

• WSC Sports Unveils Trio Of AI-Driven Content Solutions. WSC Sports has introduced three additions to its product portfolio for sports ecosystem companies that address content management, creation, and distribution and leverage artificial intelligence. The products, Around the Game, In-App Stories, and Discovery Networks, enable sports content companies to adapt more quickly to the shifting landscape of fan consumption by allowing organizations to capitalize on their relationships with fans (more here).

• Read The Pitch Decks From Sports & Gaming Startups That Helped Raise Millions Of Dollars. Here are pitch decks that 17 sports startups used to raise millions in Series A and seed rounds (more here).

• GameChanger's AI Tech Is Helping Support Youth Sports & Showcase More Than 7M Games Annually. GameChanger provides mobile apps and services for capturing content from youth sports. It uses AI to recognize video images and automatically detect and track fast-moving sports action (more here).