You know what I think about every day?
How awesome it is to be building in sports during such a transformative time.
I’m especially grateful for the 550+ members of the Profluence+ Community, which is a pleasure to innovate alongside every day.
As the opportunities continue to unfold across sports, I want to look back at 2024.
Let’s Dive In 👇
Sportainment Keeps Pushing
Many new concepts keep popping up based on the success of TopGolf.
And now, this is starting to push into ancillary products/services:
- betting solutions
- hardware tech to sell to them
- combinations of many different sports in one location
I’m bullish on sportainment overall but highly cautious.
Athlete Investing Buzz Cools Off
The cat is out of the bag.
Athletes, celebrities, and creators add value through their distribution and influence.
But now the playbook is overused.
Getting a high-level athlete on your cap table no longer generates as much PR and marketing buzz as it did over the last few years.
There are also multiple groups now aggregating athletes to syndicate investments or trying to form a fund — previously, there were only a few.
I’m seeing more companies focus on personal founder/company distribution and micro-influencers rather than traditional athletes.
Youth Sports Has A Vibe
There’s an energy in the air that wasn’t present before, and you can feel it when talking about amateur sports.
The space is heating up…
More capital wants to come in and own the youth sports space through consolidation.
However, it creates an interesting paradigm of balancing capitalism with the benefits that sports participation provides.
Some notable events from this past year:
❶ 360Player received a $25M investment from Five Elms Capital.
❷ LeagueApps raised a “significant round” from KKR and Accel.
❸ Hearing of multiple family offices snooping around the space.
❹ Youth Inc raised a $4.5m seed round from multiple sports VCs.
❺ LOVB secured $100M for its youth and pro volleyball initiatives.
❻ Fastbreak AI raised a round to make two youth sports acquisitions.
❼ Unrivaled entered the scene acquiring multiple youth baseball assets.
❽ Large PE firms are hiring consultants to analyze consolidation opportunities.
The youth sports industry is going from commercialization to privatization.
Middle East Slows Down
2023 brought this intense feeling that the Middle East would pay its way into every corner of sports.
It slowed down in 2024.
Saudi Arabia’s PIF recently released a statement saying they would “back off dishing out capital and want others to invest back into their homeland infrastructure.”
That’s not exactly how it works…especially after you deploy billions in only a few years.
Sports are a mirror of society and culture — the more the world embraces them, the better.
When we look back in the future, we will see the Middle East’s push into sports/entertainment and Western culture as a transformative decision.
Multi-Club Ownership Increases
An opportunity to invest in a European soccer club hits my inbox daily…
2024 was most likely the peak for this (and I hope that’s the case).
While Wrexham AC is a great story — the reality is that most clubs lose money and aren’t great investments.
This is especially true if your team goes the opposite way and gets relegated (and even if you do get promoted, you have to spend more money to be competitive).
Owning multiple clubs continues to increase due to groups coming together to try and leverage all the operational synergies.
50% of Italian football Serie A clubs are now owned by American firms.
It will be interesting to see how multi-club ownership plays out over the next decade.
Private Equity and Capital
The way companies get funded is changing across the macro-environment…
But this is especially true in sports.
I talked about fragmentation in a recent briefing; private equity is transforming just like most other verticals.
While I want to say more here, I’ll hold my tongue for now; pay attention to how projects from the earliest stages to IPOs are being done in sports, and you’ll pick up on some interesting trends.
Media Rights Deals
While we all know traditional cable TV is slowly dying…
Yet turn on the TV at anytime, and you’ll see sports everywhere:
- Several leagues, including the NBA, WNBA, and NWSL, saw big deals completed.
- MLB continues trying to navigate the RSN and local area deals, which don’t look bright.
- College sports are next in line for significant contracts, as football will likely head towards a super conference.
The big tech platforms like Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and YouTube continue to dabble in media rights, and that’s only going to increase.
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