🔊 Ain't Dead Yet

📰 TOP STORY
Digital Sports Publisher Minute Media Purchases Sports Illustrated Rights

• Minute Media Secures Sports Illustrated Publishing Rights. Minute Media has been busy lately. The digital sports publishing giant recently obtained the publishing rights for the legendary sports brand across digital and print platforms for the next 10 years with the option to extend it to 30. To clarify, Minute Media is not acquiring SI but rather licensing the publishing rights from SI’s owner, Authentic Brands Group, a brand ownership firm that owns the intellectual property of celebrities such as Elvis Presley and Shaquille O’Neal Minute Media is home to other leading sports and culture content brands such as The Players’ Tribune, FanSided, 90min. Its most recent 2024 acquisition, STN Video, has rights to premium highlights from every major sports league in North America for online video platform distribution. Sports Illustrated published its first issue on Aug. 16, 1954, and for decades was a massive part of the weekly reading experience of North American sports fans, with a circulation that ballooned to more than three million subscribers (more here).

💰 MONEY MOVES 
Sports Betting Content Startup Raises $6 Million In Seed Funding

• Winable Raises $6 Million Seed Round. Inspired Capital led the round with participation from PrizePicks CEO Adam Wexler, Splash Inc CRO Kyle Christensen, and former FanDuel marketing director Jesse Boskoff. NFL legend Ray Lewis and several unicorn founders, including David Petersen (Flexport), Michael Flaxman (Thumbtack), and Adam Lyons (The Zebra) also contributed (more here).

• Basketball Forever Raises $4 Million Series A Round. The round was led by Yolo Investments, an Estonian VC firm focused on gaming and fintech startups. Other participants include Andover Ventures, Astralis Capital Management, Fifth Street Gaming Chief Strategy Officer Seth Young; former Pinnacle Sports CEO Paris Smith; Acies Investments co-founding partner Chris Grove; iGaming Ideas’ David Sargeant; and Avenue H Capital principal Benjie Cherniak (more here).

• Romanian Fan-Powered Platform For Football Talent Secures €1.65 Million. Nordensa, the world’s first fan-powered platform for football talent, headquartered in Romania, announced that it raised €1.65 million in its most recent seed round to help secure resources to develop the product. This round also adds key names to the company’s Advisory Board, including Burnley FC club owner Alan Pace and former Saatchi & Saatchi CEO and Head of Marketing at Manchester City Football Club, Chris Kay. Other Notable investors include AFC Bournemouth player Emiliano Marcondes, former Denmark international Lasse Vibe, and Group Head of Football at the Right to Dream Academy, Mads Davidsen (more here).

 🤝 PARTNERSHIPS
NASCAR & Cryptoys Announce Multi-Year Partnership

• OnChain Studios Announces Multi-Year Partnership With NASCAR. The partnership is focused on creating an exciting line of playable and collectible digital toys to be sold and featured on Cryptoys, a digital toy company that combines toys, gaming, and entertainment. The goal is to bring NASCAR's iconic brand into a fun and interactive world where fans of the sport can collect, trade, and play with digital toy race cars (more here).

• Harvard Athletics Tapped WSC Sports To Provide Global Content Solutions. WSC Sports, the global leader in AI-powered video content, announced the addition of Harvard University Athletics to access their AI-powered platform for instant delivery of highlights and additional media across Harvard's digital channels (more here).

• Genius Sports Partners With The Lithuanian Basketball League. With this partnership, the Betsafe-LKL will become the first basketball league to automate the capture of eventing data, rich tracking data, and broadcast-quality live video production via a single system. Genius Sports will transform this data and video into greater insights, immersive fan experiences, and new sponsorship opportunities for the league and its teams (more here).

• Stack Sports Renews Partnership With USA Lacrosse. USA Lacrosse, the governing body for the sport in the United States and a Recognized Sports Organization by the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee, has announced a renewal of a partnership with Stack Sports, the leading provider of sports technology solutions, for an additional two years (more here).

🔊 OTHER SPORTS NEWS
JPMorgan Launches Sports Investment Banking Team

• JPMorgan Sets Up Dedicated Sports Investment Banking Team. The bank has created a new "sports investment banking coverage group" which will offer advisory and financing solutions for activities like investing in sports franchises to clients globally. The US bank has appointed Eric Menell and Gian Piero Sammartano to co-lead the group, according to an internal memo (more here).

• How Bracketologists Are Using Artificial Intelligence This March Madness. While the advancement of artificial intelligence into everyday life has made “AI” one of the buzziest phrases of the past year, its application in bracketology circles is not so new (more here).

• The Most Innovative Companies In Sports For 2024. Why State Farm, Sportradar, SailGP, and ProXR are among Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies in sports (more here).

• Shohei Ohtani’s Interpreter Fired Amid Allegations Of Massive Theft In Bookmaking Operation. Ippei Mizuhara, the longtime friend and interpreter for Ohtani, incurred the gambling debts to a Southern California bookmaking operation that is under federal investigation. At least $4.5 million in wire transfers were stolen and sent from Ohtani's bank account (more here).

• Fans Can Now Bet On NBA Games Through League Pass App. The league is launching a new betting functionality to the NBA League Pass platform that allows fans to place bets directly through game streams, working with NBA sportsbook partners DraftKings and FanDuel, the NBA, and Sportradar (more here).

• 10 Soccer Tech Startups To Watch Out For. With over 250 million players and 3.5 billion fans in over 200 countries, soccer is the most popular sport in the world. As a result, many tech companies have started to emerge in the sport (more here).

• How This Founder Is Using Artificial Intelligence To Redefine The Customer Experience Throughout Sports. Donny White has been behind the scenes building Satifi Labs, a conversational AI platform for sports, entertainment, and tourism to reinvent how fans interact with sports teams (more here).

• Houston Astros Fans Can Have Their Faces Scanned To Enter Minute Maid Park. The Astros and the MLB announced that "Go-Ahead Entry," a ticketing system that uses facial authentication technology to allow hands-free, on-the-move entry into the ballpark, is expanding to Houston and some other cities for the upcoming 2024 season (more here).