🔊 This Booming Women's Sports Brand Just Raised From Top Investors

📰 TOP STORY
Togethxr Announces New Funding Round

TOGETHXR, a women’s sports media and commerce brand, raised growth capital of an undisclosed amount. The round was led by co-founder Alex Morgan’s Trybe Ventures, with participation from Susan Lyne’s BBG Ventures, Olivia Walton’s Ingeborg Investments, Vansa Chatikavanij’s Present Ventures, Heraean Capital, LEAD’s Locker Room Capital, Checker Media, and Magnet Companies. The company intends to use the funds to expand the women’s sports marketplace. Co-founded by sports media veteran Jessica Robertson and professional athletes Alex Morgan, Chloe Kim, Simone Manuel, and Sue Bird, and led by executive chair Nancy Dubuc, TOGETHXR has generated more than $6M in revenue from its product line. Its in-house production studio has developed a slate of premium scripted and unscripted content, streaming on platforms such as Amazon Prime, FuboTV, among others.

Why Is This Important?

If you’re reading this newsletter, you likely have heard about the growth in women’s sports. With emerging leagues such as Unrivaled, the NWSL, and LOVB, rising individual team valuations, and brands pouring more dollars into sponsorship and partnerships, women’s sports are in great shape. As a result of these developments, supporting companies and media platforms have also benefited. TOGETHXR is a prime example. They have an incredibly strong flywheel, even though they’ve only been around for about four years. First, they focus on creating engaging, high-quality content across social and other channels. That content leads to more viewers, awareness, and fans. Then they sell various products to them, from t-shirts to books. They also host events and have an exclusive athlete community. It’s a simple model, but highly effective. Plus, they’re already profitable. Overall, this is a strong business in the right niche at the right time. And in essence, fandom is just the intersection of content, commerce, and community. TOGETHXR realizes this and is doing a hell of a job capitalizing on it.

💰 MERGERS & MONEY MOVES 
Global Sports Media Company Raises Series D Round

• FloSports Raises $20M+ Series D. FloSports, a sports media company, has raised a new round of capital, completing a Series D led by India-based Dream Sports. This brings the company’s total funds raised to date to more than $100M. FloSports didn’t disclose the amount of the latest investment but has publicly stated that earlier funding rounds raised $76.2M, suggesting the most recent round raised roughly $24M. Dream Sports joins existing FloSports investors, including Causeway Media Partners, Warner Bros. Discovery, DCM Ventures, Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments, and Fertitta Capital (more here).

• Michele Kang Invests $25M Into US Soccer. Washington Spirit owner Michele Kang announced that she is integrating the current operations of Kynisca Innovation Hub into the Soccer Forward Foundation and making an additional $25M investment to support US Soccer's efforts. This brings Kang's total investment in federation operations to $55M. Last year, she pledged $30M over five years to US Soccer to professionalize women's and girls' soccer, from the playing and coaching pathways to administrative opportunities (more here).

• PlayOn Acquires MaxPreps. PlayOn, a KKR-backed fan engagement platform for youth and high school sports, has acquired MaxPreps, a leading source for high school sports schedules, scores, statistics, rankings, and more, from CBS Sports for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition brings MaxPreps alongside its new owners’ other high school media brands, GoFan, VidSwap, and the NFHS Network (more here).

• PGA Tour Rejects PIF’s $1.5B Offer. The PGA Tour has rejected the PIF's most recent offer to invest $1.5B into PGA Tour Enterprises, the tour's for-profit entity. The key divide between the parties is that the PGA Tour wants one premier golf circuit, while the Saudi PIF wants to keep LIV Golf intact in any potential deal. The PIF, which has funded LIV Golf since its inception in 2022, also wants its governor, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, to serve as co-chairman of PGA Tour Enterprises' board (more here).

TOGETHER WITH BUYING SANDLOT
☄️ Youth Sports Are About To Explode

The youth sports market is set to grow from its current level of around $40 billion to over $70 billion by 2030.

Investments in facilities, equipment, training, and yes, tech, are pouring in as PE money helps to consolidate a highly fragmented space.

Youth and amateur sports tourism alone may account for upwards of $50 billion in annual spending, according to some estimates.

The problem is that general interest sports business publications, like Front Office Sports and Sportico, only scratch the surface with their coverage.

Much like Vetted Sports covers the intersection of sports, tech, and business, Buying Sandlot covers everything you need to know about the business of youth sports.

Subscribe to their free newsletter and get:

✓ Insights on deals, investments, and market trends

✓ Opportunities in youth sports facilities, tech, and events

✓ Exclusive access to data and analysis

 🤝 PARTNERSHIPS
UFC & Meta Enter Multi-Year Tech Partnership

• UFC & Meta Form Partnership. Mixed martial arts league UFC has reached a multimillion-dollar, multiple-year sponsorship deal with technology company Meta. UFC’s integration with Meta will span the company’s portfolio, including Meta AI, Meta Glasses, Meta Quest, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads. Dana White will also join Meta’s board. Specific financial terms weren’t disclosed (more here).

• NWSL & AT&T Form Partnership. The National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) announced a multi-year sponsorship deal with communications giant AT&T. AT&T will become the league’s official connectivity partner and the collaboration will build on the pair’s commitment to empowering women’s sports, uplifting communities, and enhancing fan connectivity through innovative technology and engagement platforms (more here).

• WBD Sports & AWS Form AI Partnership. Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) Sports Europe has announced the launch of Cycling Central Intelligence (CCI), a generative AI-powered platform developed in collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) that transforms how mountain bike events are brought to viewers worldwide. As part of this collab, AWS becomes the Official Cloud Infrastructure, AI, ML, and Deep Learning Provider for the WHOOP UCI Mountain Bike World Series (more here).

🔊 ATHLETES & OTHER NEWS
NFL Says Goodbye To Chain Crew Measurement

• NFL Will Use Hawk-Eye Tech To Measure First Downs In 2025. This week at the annual spring owners meetings, the league announced that it will use Sony's Hawk-Eye technology as the primary way to measure the first-down line. The technology will use six 8K cameras to track the ball's position on the field. The traditional chain crew will remain on the sidelines in a secondary capacity (more here).

• Russell Westbrook Invests In Wheeler Bio, Inc. Russell Westbrook Enterprises is investing in Wheeler Bio. The company, founded by Christian Kanady, announced the closing of a $35M Series A-1 financing round led by Alloy Therapeutics and Echo Investment Capital, with participation, Mitsubishi Corporation and Germin8 Ventures. The undisclosed investment by Westbrook in Wheeler Bio is in addition to an “eight-figure" deal announced in November with the sports and entertainment division of Echo that coincided with Kanady buying a majority interest in Energy FC and announcing plans to start a women’s soccer team (more here).

• Harry Kane Invests In SeatUnique. England men’s football captain Harry Kane has invested in UK-based ticketing start-up Seat Unique. The Bayern Munich striker will take a stake in the group as part of a wider funding round that values Seat Unique at more than £100M. Founded in 2019 by Robin Sherry and Phillipa Hicks, Seat Unique sells access to the official premium seats and experiences for sports and music events that are normally reserved for corporate clients and box holders (more here).

• Here’s Why So Few Sports Teams Go Public. Over the last two decades, the value of North American sports franchises has surged. Teams in the NFL, NBA, and MLB have seen valuations climb nearly 1,000% according to data from Forbes. Despite that massive growth, most teams remain privately owned, typically passed down through generations of ultra-wealthy families. For many owners, these franchises aren’t just businesses; they’re cultural assets, status symbols, and tools for influence (more here).

• The World’s Richest Sports Team Owners 2025. Combined, the 25 richest sports owners in the world are worth $607B, with the top 20 accounting for $557B of that total, a 16% increase from 2024’s ranking of 20 owners. Nearly every owner saw their net worth climb amid a robust year for the stock market. Here are the 25 richest sports team owners on the 2025 World’s Billionaires list, with their net worths as of March 7th (more here).

🎙️ PODCAST INTERVIEWS
Behind The Scenes Of The Top Sports Tech Accelerator With Jenna Kurath

This week’s podcast guest is Jenna Kurath, the Head of Comcast SportsTech and Vice President of Startup Partnerships.

Comcast SportsTech is an accelerator that finds funds and fast-tracks the most innovative startups globally to invest in and develop the next generation of technology to change how we experience sports.

In this episode, we discuss:

• The beginning of Comcast SportsTech and the launch of the first cohort

• The process behind how they select companies,

• Advice for founders looking to scale in the sports industry

To catch the full episode, click the links here: YouTube | Apple | Spotify