🔊Emerging Soccer League Raises $24M

📰 TOP STORY
Baller League Completes $24M Funding Round

• Baller League Raises $24M. Baller League, a digital-focused soccer league, has secured investment from Portugal-based investment firm Apex Capital alongside several high-profile soccer players including Diogo Dalot, Diogo Jota, Mason Mount, José Fonte, André Silva, and Ferdi Kadıoğlu. The reported total funding for this series A round is around €23M ($24.1M). EQT Ventures and Courtside Ventures also participated as well. Baller League has already conducted two seasons in Germany and is expanding to the UK in 2025 (expected to launch by the end of March). What’s unique about this league is its six-a-side format, shorter match times (15 minutes per half), and focus on making the sport more exhilarating and entertaining. It has also benefited from the backing of other prominent athletes and internet personalities, such as KSI, Felix Lobrecht, and iShowSpeed. Similar to the Kings League, the goal of the Baller League is to merge top internet influencers and creators with the culture of street football to engage a younger demographic. This gives them incredible distribution and reach. These digital-first leagues are super interesting and will continue to explode primarily because they’re meeting fans where they’re at and they feel innate to a modern, Gen Z consumer. This is a great example of how to rethink and differentiate a product in today’s world (more here).

💰 MONEY MOVES 
Irish Sports Tech Startup Raises Pre-A Round

• Output Raises $4.8M. Output Sports, an Irish sports technology company, has announced the closing of a $4.8M pre-A funding round. Investors included Apex Capital, European Deep Tech Investor, Uni.Fund and Dopamine Sports. Contributions were also made by existing investors Elkstone, Atlantic Bridge, Enterprise Ireland, and several angel investors. The company plans to hire across sales, marketing, product development, data science, and customer support with this capital (more here).

• SportAI Raises $805K. SportAI, a Norwegian B2B sports tech company, has raised $805K in grants from Innovation Norway and the Eurostars Eureka Network to advance its AI-powered racquet sports technique analysis platform. This funding follows a €1.6M seed round in August 2024. The new funds will support the company’s ongoing technical development, particularly in motion analysis for tennis and padel (more here).

 🤝 PARTNERSHIPS
Fastbreak.AI Announces Another Major League Partnership

• Fastbreak.Ai & Stoiximan Greek Basketball League Partners Announce Partnership. Fastbreak.AI, the leading AI sports scheduling solution, announced a multi-year partnership with The Stoiximan Greek Basketball League, to enhance the league’s scheduling processes using the Fastbreak Pro scheduling platform. Fastbreak Pro, renowned for its advanced AI and machine learning capabilities, will help the league create optimized schedules that promote fairness, efficiency, and convenience for all teams and stakeholders (more here).

• 49ers & NetApp Announce Partnership. NetApp announced a multi-year partnership with the San Francisco 49ers to transform the team’s operations with next-generation technology and innovation. As a founding-level partner, NetApp has also been named the Official Intelligent Data Infrastructure Partner of the franchise. The team will utilize NetApp’s silo-free data infrastructure to improve multiple facets of its operations, starting with a transformative upgrade to the fan experience at Levi’s Stadium (more here).

• Pittsburg Steelers & Sports Illustrated Tickets Announce Partnership. Sports Illustrated Tickets announced an agreement to become the Steelers’ Official Fan Experience partner. Sports Illustrated Black & Gold Watch Parties at Acrisure Stadium during road games will be part of the deal. Fans attending the road game watch parties will also be offered a commemorative keepsake Sports Illustrated Fan Cover (more here).

• FIBA & ScorePlay Announce Partnership. International basketball’s governing body FIBA announced a partnership with ScorePlay, a provider of AI-powered digital and media asset management solutions in sports. The focus of the multi-year partnership will be to enhance digital workflows by automating indexation, management, and distribution of digital assets for basketball entities. (more here).

🔊 ATHLETES & OTHER NEWS
Former Pro Athletes Purchase A Mexican Football Team

• Ryan Kalil & Blake Griffin Acquire Majority Stake In American Football Team in Mexico. Former NFL All-Pro Ryan Kalil and NBA All-Star Blake Griffin have acquired a controlling stake in an American football team based in Monterrey, Mexico, which competes in the LFA (Liga de Fútbol Americano). Alongside an ownership group of current and former professional athletes, they aim to elevate the team and league globally (more here).

• Inside The Multibillion-Dollar Sports Gold Rush: Soccer Teams. From athletes and actors to venture capitalists and billionaires, investors are spending hundreds of millions to stake a claim in the next sports gold rush: soccer teams. And it’s not just in European markets, MLS is now averaging more fans per game than the NBA, NHL, and MLB. The average MLS franchise has grown five times the rate of other US pro leagues over the last few years. Here’s an inside look at the growing US and European soccer market and why soccer teams are such an opportunity space for American investors (more here).

• World Cup Champion-Turned-Investor Alex Morgan Sees A VC Wave Coming To Women's Sports. Alex Morgan is a former professional soccer player and was captain of the US National Team. The two-time World Cup champion now runs her own venture capital firm, which invests in the women’s sports space. Here are her thoughts on how women’s sports are evolving (more here).

• 20 Sports Tech Ideas To Invest In Now. Technology helps drive performance, commercial growth, and participation levels across the industry, amplifying the entertainment, societal, and health benefits. Startups play a huge role in this ecosystem by bringing new ideas and identifying solutions for industry-specific challenges. In recognition of this, SportsPro has put together a list of 20 sports tech ideas to invest in now, which spotlights the early-stage companies that investors should keep an eye on in 2025 (more here).

• Could A WNBA Team Be Coming To Detroit? This week, Detroit Pistons owner Tom Gores submitted a bid to the NBA to bring a WNBA team to Detroit. In addition to Tom Gores and his wife, the investor group includes Sheila Ford Hamp and her husband, Steve, Mary Barra and her husband, Tony, Grant Hill and his wife, Tamia, Chris Webber, Jared Goff and his wife, Christe, Arn and Nancy Tellem and several other sports, entertainment, media business, and finance leaders (more here).

• MLS Moves Production Studio To WWE Headquarters. As part of the extended partnership with WWE, MLS Productions will move to WWE Headquarters in Stamford, CT. WWE’s brand-new, state-of-the-art production facility features best-in-class production offerings and new cutting-edge technology to elevate the production of MLS Season Pass. It will serve as the dynamic hub for popular MLS live studio programming and content (more here).

• Global Investors See Big Opportunities In Sports Tech. While buying and selling sports franchises often gets the most media attention, a new survey from Altman Solon finds that global sports executives see technology as the most promising investment opportunity in the next three to five years (more here).

• NHL Brings Hockeyverse To Fans. The NHL announced "NHL HOCKEYVERSE Matchup of the Week," a first-of-its-kind 30-minute animated program that will bring the excitement of the NHL to life in a whole new way. The weekly show will recap an NHL regular-season matchup from the prior week in a fun, youth-centric program airing on Sportsnet in Canada, NHL Network in the United States, and globally on the NHL YouTube channel (more here).

• The Hundred Sells Out To Boost Profile & English Cricket’s Future. The Hundred, English cricket’s version of the Indian Premier League is reaching a new stage in its development with the sale of the existing franchises that currently compete. The equity sales process began back in September when the England and Wales Cricket Board opened up the bidding for a 49% stake in each of the eight teams. They received multiple bids from the likes of IPL team owners, U.S. sports investors, global tech entrepreneurs, and big private equity names (more here).