Photo Creds: Super Bowl LVIII advertised on the Sphere.
Super Bowl 2024: The Peak of Fan Engagement?
The 2024 NFL Super Bowl is taking place this weekend in Las Vegas, Sunday February 11th, and projected to exceed 120M viewers in the US, setting a record-high in viewership. In the face of an increasingly fragmented media landscape, brands are dumping money into the broadcast to capture consumer behavior, which might be their sole opportunity of capitalizing on the Taylor Swift cultural tailwind.
How much are brands investing and what’s the ROI?
Companies are paying $6.5M-$7M for a 30-second Super Bowl Ad
$4.60 per dollar spent is the average return on investment (ROI) for a Super Bowl Ad (INSANE!)
56% of fans say past Super Bowl commercials have deepened a connection with the brand
41% of viewers say they have become a fan of a product because of its Super Bowl Commercial
How much will consumers really spend during the Super Bowl?
Personalizing Sports-Broadcasts & Media Rights
$110B+ is the value of the NFL’s existing TV deals, set to expire in 2033. While the Super Bowl and current sports leagues have traditionally relied on bulk media deals with centralized streamers like TNT, FOX, ESPN, etc., there has been an increasing demand for personalized viewership experiences. For example, in this year’s Super Bowl, 53% of viewers are expected to be men; however, a large chunk of advertisers this year are catered towards the female viewers. Brands such as L’Oreal, e.l.f Cosmetics, Dove, NYX Professional Makeup among others are featuring powerful women in hopes to resonate with the respective viewership demographic. There are millions of dollars of revenue left on the table by the NFL (and the like), as they fail to offer personalized DTC advertising experiences. Almost 1/2 of the entire broadcast viewership may not be able to connect with certain brands.
Imagine a world where your sports-watching experience is personally catered to you…featuring hyper-personalized ads for products you may use, companies you may like, and the brands your friends may prefer. Will it ever be possible? Companies such as Infinite Athlete AI and the Comcast Boomtown Sports-Tech Accelerator are incubating technologies for this exact breakthrough. It might be coming sooner than we think.
Weekly Startup Spotlight
In light of the Super Bowl, one of the most-watched sporting events in the world, we wanted to highlight two sports-technology startups that are revolutionizing the fan experience forever:
Infinite Athlete AI - Decentralizing the traditional sports-broadcast and personalizing the viewing experience for each fan. In Sept. 2023, the company inked a $49M deal to become Chelsea FC’s front-of-shirt sponsor and created Tempus Ex’s MVX which allows each Chelsea fan to watch the game with personalized graphic overlays, real-time athlete tracking, automated highlights, and augmented reality.
Founders: Charlie Ebersol, Erik Schwartz, Annie Gerhart, Dr. Jeff Crandall (Biocore)
Funding: Raised $36.9M Series B in 2021, backed by Silver Lake, Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst, Will Ventures, Endeavor, Founders Fund, and more
ScorePlay - An AI-powered digital asset manager used by sports team to automate the management and distribution of photos and videos to enable athletes and clubs to tell their stories. The company aids marketing teams by creating the content for 120 organizations including the Sacramento Kings, Premier League, La Liga, Major League Pickleball, 16 MLS teams.
Founders: Victorien Tixier, Xavier Green
Funding: Raised $6.5M seed round in 2023, led by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian’s Seven Seven Six, 35 Ventures (Kevin Durant), APEX Capital, Manchester United’s Raphaël Varane, and more
If you are building, operating, or would like to recommend a startup to be showcased, please shoot me a DM on LinkedIn: Sid Balaga.
Sports-Tech Market Activity: Investors & Deals
Venture Capital
Status Pro, an advanced VR sports tech & gaming company, raised $20M in a Series A round (Feb. 5th)
Expanding development of content to new sports while enhancing its current VR technology
Launched its first game in 2022, NFL PRO ERA, it became the fastest-selling VR sports title on Meta’s Quest platform with 1 million users immersed themselves in first-person football [FinSMEs]
Series A round was led by Google Ventures; other investors included celebrities such as Lebron James, Drake, Myles Garrett, etc.
ALT Sports Data, a sports betting data & analytics company, raised $2.5M in a seed round (Feb. 6th)
Further scaling their data collection & optimization to improve betting markets for clients
Seed round was led by Eberg Capital & Relay Ventures; other investors include Trinity West and NuFund Ventures [FinSMEs]
Camb.ai, an AI dubbing company, raises $4M in seed funding (Feb. 6th)
1 of 6 inaugural members of the MLS Innovation Lab, an incubator that tests innovative products through the league’s ecosystem
Translates 100+ languages in streaming content for MLS, Tennis Australia, and Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment
Seed round was led by Courtside Ventures; other investors include TRTL Ventures, Blue Star Innovation Partners, etc. [SBJ]
ActionStreamer, developer of sports wearables for live-streaming, raised $2.4M in a Series A Round (Feb. 6th)
Currently developing its pending IoT streaming technology
Company’s POV cameras used in leagues such as the NFL, MLB, etc. to capture both enhanced & unique content on the field for fans to enjoy
Series A round was led by JumpStart Ventures [SBJ]
SweetSpot, a backyard sports brand, is rebranding with the help of a new fundraising round (Feb. 7th)
Expanding products from baseball/softball to football, soccer, pickleball, and more
Investment was led by Elysian Park; other investors include Wayne Gretzky [GN]
Stokes Games, a video game development company, raised $5.5M in a recent funding round (Feb. 8th)
Developing their debut “strategic shooting” game, a slower-tempo shooting game that emphasizes strategy/game-knowledge
Investment was led by BITKRAFT Ventures; other investors included Riot Games and 1Up Ventures [Forbes]
Accelerators
Warner Music Group & Polygon Labs’ Web3 Music Accelerator Program announces its two recipients (Feb. 5th)
MITH is a fan engagement platform for musicians
Provides a tech stack that allows its artists to provide exclusive content & rewards for fans
The platform also collects valuable data analytics and insights on its fans
Muus Collective is a digital entertainment platform that creates fashion-oriented mobile games, entertainment, and collectibles
Develops digital studios/fashion playgrounds to bring fashion-forward communities together
Debut game is planned to be released in Q2 of 2024 [VC Wire]
M&A and Investments
Disney invests $1.5B in Epic Games (Feb. 7th)
The collab focuses on creating gaming content where users can play in a universe with Disney-licensed characters, such as Marvel superheroes
Disney’s largest investment in the gaming space to date [CNBC]
Svexa, developer of AI-generated personalized training programs, acquired Kollektiv (Feb. 7th)
Elevate, an sports/entertainment consulting firm, acquires SRI to bolster its launch of Elevate Talent (Feb. 7th)
Max Challenge and Farrell’s Extreme Bodyshaping franchises have merged under the name FIT Franchise Brands (Feb. 6th)
Max Challenge provides 10-week fitness programs & has gym locations in 6 states
Extreme Bodyshaping is a fitness program/studio focusing on kickboxing, strength training, and general nutrition
The new franchising organization will now serves 30k+ members [Athletetech]
Photo: New joint media venture to launch streaming sports service in US (Fall 2024)
Strategic Ventures
ESPN, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery are joining forces on a BLOCKBUSTER sports streaming service (Feb. 7th)
The three companies have agreed to create a new pay streaming-sports service that will launch this fall
New platform will include live games from 14 networks whose rights are owned by the three companies (NFL, MLB , NBA, etc.)
Revenue shares will be disproportionate as ESPN & Fox have NFL rights but WBD does not [FOS]
European Broadcast Union is launching a free streaming service for Olympic Sports (Feb. 5th)
Will air major championships in Olympic sports; the World Aquatics Championship in Qatar will be its debut, airing on Feb. 18th
New platform will be under Eurovision, which aims to consolidate Olympics sport streaming under one platform [SBJ]
DAZN closes global distribution deal with FIBA (Feb. 8th)
Reached a 6-year agreement with FIBA and sports marketing agency Two Circles
Can now offer live & on-demand content of FIBA international, club, and domestic league competition [SBJ]
Edge3, an athlete intelligence platform, partners with IBM to integrate Watsonx AI into its new Edge3 Scoring System (Feb. 7th)
Edge3 Scoring System will use recruiting/scouting data to match both HS & College athletes to coaching staff
Data-driven recruiting platforms demand has accelerated due to NIL and lifted restrictions on the college transfer portal [IBM]
Stats Perform, a data & sports research provider, and MyCoach Pro, an athlete management company, plan to launch Opta Pro Hub (Feb. 7th)
Opta Pro Hub provides clubs with a comprehensive scouting platform
Software will leverage Stats Perform’s scouting analysis tools with MyCoach Pro’s AMS [SBJ]
Job Board & Opportunities: Week of February 5th
Every week, the job board is personally curated for openings that are not widely posted. Spanning business development to software engineering and everything in between - entry level jobs to senior leadership - here’s to those looking for new opportunities in 2024: