🔊 Tom Brady Relaunches $200M Startup

📰 TOP STORY
Tom Brady’s Autograph Platform Gets An Overhaul

• Introducing The New Autograph App. This week, Tom Brady's former NFT platform Autograph announced its new fandom platform "Autograph: Sports Fandom," designed to power the most comprehensive and personalized fan experience in sports. This is supposedly the only fan platform that organizes all the best content in one place and rewards fans for their everyday fandom and doing things like reading blogs/social, listening to podcasts, and watching videos. The platform aggregates content sources from over 3,800 creators, fan blogs, social channels, YouTube channels, and podcasts, creating a one-stop source experience covering a wide array of professional and college sports teams. Fans can select their favorite teams and then are served up content produced by creators who are passionate fans themselves. From there, fans are awarded coins for the content they consume. Those coins can then be used to unlock exclusive drops, including sports tickets, memorabilia, merchandise, unrivaled experiences, and more. The app is available to download now. Fast Company has an exclusive interview with their team (more here).

💰 MONEY MOVES 
Magic Johnson Joins Washington Spirit Ownership Group

• NBA Legend Magic Johnson Becomes An Owner Of Washington Spirit. The team’s majority owner Michele Kang welcomed a new member to the ownership table on Thursday in NBA Hall of Famer Irving "Magic" Johnson as the two announced the move on CBS Mornings. Kang became the majority owner of the NWSL franchise in 2022 when she purchased the club for a then-league-record $35M, and now she welcomes a sports legend who is not new when it comes to ownership as he also owns minority stakes in the Washington Commanders, Los Angeles Dodgers, Los Angeles Sparks and Los Angeles Football Club (more here).

• DubClub Raises $7.5M Series A. DubClub, a platform where amateur sports bettors can subscribe to professional “handicappers,” recently raised a $7.5M Series A round led by Renegade Partners. The company was founded in 2021 by Ryan Gaertner, Andrew Daschbach, and Lewis Burik. Since then, the company has seen more than 1M subscribers on its platforms, with some users being consistently subscribed to certain cappers for more than a year straight (more here).

• Spolto Raises $1M Seed. Spolto, an Indian-based sports tech startup, has secured over $1M in funding. The company was founded in 2021 by Safa Soltani, with Divesh Nathani serving as Partner and COO. Spolto “aims to enhance sports access across urban India,” and offers various sports, including badminton, tennis, swimming, and gymnastics (more here).

• Athlens Secures Angel Round Funding. Athlens, a Princeton, NJ-based platform provider dedicated to connecting student-athletes with student creators and marketers, raised an undisclosed amount in Angel funding. Backers were not disclosed. The company intends to use the funds to support the final stages of platform development, enhance its marketing efforts, and scale operations to reach and engage with students across various markets (more here).

 🤝 PARTNERSHIPS
LaLiga Partners With Emerging African-Based Sports Betting Company

• LaLiga Partners With Africa-Based SportyBet. Fast-growing African online betting business SportyBet has agreed to a multi-year sponsorship with LaLiga, adding regional betting deals with M88 in Asia and RushBet in South America to the Spanish league. SportyBet, launched in 2018, is the fastest-growing gross gaming revenue of any region in the world. They also have regional partnerships with Real Madrid and Manchester City (more here).

• BioTechUSA Partners With FC Barcelona. FC Barcelona and BioTechUSA Group have signed a partnership agreement that makes the sports nutrition company the club’s new Global Partner in the Sports Nutrition category. BioTechUSA Group will provide the players with world-class supplements to maximize their performance over the following years (more here).

• Perficient Partners With Atlanta Falcons. Perficient, Inc., the leading global digital consultancy transforming the world’s largest enterprises and biggest brands, announced a multi-year partnership with the Atlanta Falcons, expanding its relationship with AMB Sports and Entertainment. This partnership builds on Perficient’s ongoing collaboration with Atlanta United and extends its digital transformation expertise to both teams (more here).

• ZAGG Announces Custom Glass In Partnership With Screen Skinz. ZAGG, a global leader in accessories and technologies that empower mobile lifestyles, announced its partnership with Screen Skinz, a leading custom screen protection manufacturing company, to introduce ZAGG Custom Glass. This innovative product combines state-of-the-art screen protection with disappearing custom designs. ZAGG will also retail Screen Skinz officially licensed screen protectors from popular sports and entertainment brands (more here).

• Vivid Seats Announces Multiyear Media Partnership With I Am Athlete. Vivid Seats, a leading marketplace that utilizes its technology platform to connect millions of buyers with thousands of ticket sellers across hundreds of thousands of events each year, announced an exclusive, multiyear media deal with I Am Athlete, the athlete-led media platform founded by former NFL All-Pro receiver Brandon Marshall. Launching with the official start of the 2024 NFL Season, the new strategic partnership includes exclusive content featuring athletes and celebrities, advertising and sponsorship rights, and live event experiences (more here).

• WSC Sports Forms Czech Soccer League Partnership. Czech soccer’s LFA (League Football Association) organizing body has announced a new partnership with sports-focused AI-powered video content provider WSC Sports. The LFA, which represents the 32 clubs of Czech soccer’s top two tiers, will utilize WSC’s proprietary AI solution to streamline and enhance its video content offering. Clubs from the top-tier First League, and the LFA itself, will now be more able to craft “AI-tailored” sports content, with streamlined workflows, speedier production, and new formats to be applied to their respective social media and digital channels (more here).

🔊 ATHLETES & OTHER SPORTS NEWS
Myles Garrett Invests Into An Energy Company

• NFL Star Myles Garrett Invests In Johnson Energy Storage. Johnson Energy Storage announced that Myles Garrett, star defensive end for the NFL’s Cleveland Browns, has made a strategic investment in the company’s recent funding round. Johnson Energy Storage, founded by renowned inventor Dr. Lonnie Johnson who invented the super soaker, is a leader in advanced battery technology and focused on developing a proprietary, all-solid-state battery (more here).

• How SportAI Is Revolutionizing The Sports Industry. SportAI targets B2B solutions to enhance training facilities, guide equipment recommendations, and optimize broadcasting content. By addressing the limitations of traditional coaching methods, which can often be subjective and costly, the platform provides objective, data-driven insights to help players improve their techniques effectively (more here).

• Field Vision Launches New App. Football analytics company Field Vision launched the first AI-driven mobile app that provides professional football's most accurate game and player-specific predictions and analysis. The app provides intuitive and digestible insights for every type of fan and is available for download through the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. Users will receive a free two-week trial to the Field Vision app, after which subscriptions are $9.99 per month or $49.99 per year (more here).

• Private Equity Will Be Able To Invest In The NFL But Won’t Have Much Say In Team Decisions. The NFL is opening its gates to private equity investors, but their involvement in the league is limited for now. Last week, NFL team owners voted to allow an initial group of private equity firms to acquire up to a 10% stake in a franchise. Still, investors are meant to take silent roles in the U.S.′ most exclusive professional sports club (more here).

• Coco Gauff’s TikTok Inspiration: The Weight Of Social Media On Athletes. Coco Gauff, the reigning U.S. Open champion, experienced a massive mindset shift ahead of her first-round match at the 2024 tournament. What precipitated this change? Like many athletes, social media played a major role. Not only was she experiencing the pressure of defending her title, but she was also facing scrutiny from many people online (more here).

• Amazon Expands AI-Powered Just Walk Out To More NFL Football Stadiums & College Campuses. Fourteen new AI-powered Just Walk Out stores will open this week as NFL teams host their season kickoff games. Additionally, more colleges are utilizing Just Walk Out technology on their campuses, bringing the total to more than 30 university stores with the technology worldwide. Just Walk Out technology first debuted in 2018 with the first Amazon Go convenience store in Seattle. It uses AI, a lot of cameras, and some sensors to enable shoppers to grab what they want and leave without stopping at a cash register (more here).

• A New Age Of Patronage: Comparing Tech Investing To Emerging Sports. In contemporary business and entertainment, savvy investors and entrepreneurs are constantly on the lookout for the next big thing. For the modern patron—whether in arts, sports, or tech—a new paradigm presents itself. While many focus on tech startups, there is a parallel universe of adventurous investors putting their money into emerging sports (more here).

• CNBC’s Official NFL Team Valuations 2024. CNBC releases its first-ever Official NFL Team Valuations. Here we rank professional football teams on overall franchise value, calculated by CNBC senior sports reporter Michael Ozanian. The rankings factor in a team’s revenue, profit, and debt to match up the 32 clubs ahead of the start of the NFL season (more here).