🔊 NBA Legend Becomes 4th Athlete To Reach Billionaire Status

📰 TOP STORY
Magic Johnson Becomes 4th Athlete To Reach Billionaire Status

• Former NBA point guard Magic Johnson is now a billionaire according to Forbes. He joins fellow NBA players Michael Jordan and LeBron James and golfer Tiger Woods as the only athletes to do so. The business magazine and media website estimates Johnson's net worth is around $1.2 billion.

Some of his on-the-court accomplishments include:

• 5× NBA Champion

• 3× NBA Finals MVP

• 3× NBA Most Valuable Player

• 12× NBA All-Star

• 9× All-NBA First Team

Some of his off-the-court accomplishments include:

• Chairman and CEO of Magic Johnson Enterprises

• Ownership stake in Los Angeles Sparks

• Ownership stake in Los Angeles Dodgers

• Ownership stake in Los Angeles Football Club (LAFC)

• Ownership stake in Washington Commanders

• Ownership stakes in Starbucks, Burger King, 24 Hour Fitness, and EquiTrust Life Insurance Company

He’s also a huge advocate for and investor in technology:

• Investor in SimWin Sports

• Investor in ShotTracker

• Investor in TopGolf

• Investor in Skydio 

• Investor in TeamLiquid

• Board member at Uncharted Power

• Board member at Fanatics

💰 MONEY MOVES 
Here’s How To Raise $3 Million For Your Startup

• Here’s the 15-page pitch deck a former Patreon employee used to raise $2.75 million for his sports creator app. Former Patreon and Dropbox employee Sandeep Rajan founded Grandstand to address what he saw as a gap in the market: the potential earnings opportunities for athlete creators. One of the latest startups to emerge on the creator economy scene is already making waves — in the past six months, it's raised millions of dollars and signed 10 athletes (more here).

• Animoca Brands Partners with NEOM Investment Fund for Web3 Ventures. The well-known metaverse and gaming venture capital firm Animoca Brands will strategically partner with the Saudi Arabian NEOM Investment Fund to concentrate on Web3 initiatives (more here).

• Zelus Analytics acquires TourIQ. Zelus Analytics, the sports analytics company that’s transforming player evaluation and in-game decision-making announced that it has successfully acquired TourIQ Golf, the leading analytics service built specifically for professional golfers on the PGA Tour (more here).

• Barcelona-based sports tech Lapso Studios snaps €1.5 million to speed up expansion in the rest of Spain. Lapso Studios, a sports tech that combines cycling, coaching, and dance to offer a healthy all-around training experience, has closed its first round of funding for €1.5 million (more here).

• Moonveil Entertainment raises $5.4M for Web3 multiplayer mobile games. The vision of the studio is to craft top-notch gaming experiences that seamlessly combine casual flexibility with authentic fun depth (more here).

• Popular sports betting app sees stock spike after bold moves. The nascent online sports betting market continues to fluctuate, and the publicly traded DraftKings is once again enjoying life at the top (more here).

 🤝 PARTNERSHIPS & COLLABS
Olympic Gold Medalist Michael Johnson Pushes New Technology

• Olympic Gold-medalist Michael Johnson partners with OMORPHO to revolutionize athletic training. This partnership aims to enhance training methodologies for elite athletes by incorporating OMORPHO’s Gravity Sportswear into their preparation to improve performance and help break future records (more here).

• Overtime and NFL execs on why they're teaming up to reach Gen Z sports fans on social media. The NFL and the Gen-Z media company recently announced a partnership that will give Overtime behind-the-scenes access to make content at key events, including the Super Bowl, Pro Bowl, Combine, and Draft. It's the brand's first content deal with one of the four major US leagues (more here).

• TNT Sports and Cosm announce partnership to deliver live sports in "Shared Reality" immersive venues. TNT Sports and Cosm, a leading immersive technology, media, and entertainment company, today announced a first-of-its-kind, multi-year broadcast partnership that will see Cosm produce and present select live premium sports programming from across TNT Sports' footprint in immersive 8K+ at its forthcoming venues (more here).

• Basepath partners with Athletiverse for NIL content, and branding. Basepath, a leading NIL software company, has entered a partnership with Athletiverse, a creative agency that focuses on white-labeled content, social media, and social growth strategies for brands and athletes (more here).

• Palmeiras and Sorare team up to launch player NFTs. Palmeiras and Sorare announced a partnership that will make exclusive NFTs (digital cards) available from current Verdão players, such as Gustavo Gómez, Raphael Veiga, Endrick, Dudu, Rony, among others (more here).

🔊 OTHER HYPE
ESPN Gets Slammed For Fake Dame Lillard Interview

• ESPN issues an apology for Damian Lillard's deepfake. In digitally repurposing that interview with Lillard, ESPN took a baby step into a new paradigm for sports broadcasting, but fans had some harsh words (more here).

• Why Comcast built an accelerator to nurture sports startups. The Comcast NBCUniversal SportsTech Accelerator was born with a vision of finding startups that would bring some innovation to their sports league partners while giving the startups access to Comcast’s media expertise and the leagues themselves (more here).

• Form launches HeadCoach real-time coaching for AR swim goggles. Form, a maker of augmented reality swim goggles, wants to revolutionize athletic performance with the launch of HeadCoach, a live digital swim coach. HeadCoach introduces in-goggle, real-time coaching, breaking down the barriers between swimmers and their potential (more here).

• The AI Advantage: Technology driving innovation in women's sports. Interest in women's sports appears to be rising, and there are several key factors that are likely fueling it (more here).

• Minnesota Twins Accelerator by Techstars Set to mentor 10 companies. Ten handpicked companies from across the globe will call the Twin Cities home for the duration of a mentoring program (more here).

• As Disney and Fanatics threats emerge, FanDuel CEO says online sports betting isn’t for the ‘faint of heart’. FanDuel CEO Amy Howe said that while the online sports gambling industry is still evolving and it faces new competition from Disney and Fanatics, the barriers of entry to compete for bettors are very high (more here).

• NBA rookie Victor Wembanyama NFT just broke his trading card record, here's how. An NFT trading card based on NBA rookie star Victor Wembanyama sold for over $110,000 Thursday, apparently topping the record sale for one of his physical trading cards (more here).