#122 🦄 SportsTech Unicorn #38: Fantasy Sports App Joins the Club

News, features & insights from the world of Sports Tech & Biz. Every Week.

Underdog Fantasy’s recent investment round makes them the latest member of the SportsTech Unicorn club - we’ll be sharing an updated list soon. In the meantime, a quick announcement of our own: SportsTech Bootcamp is back, with the second cohort kicking off in mid-May. Applications are now open, details below.

As always, have a great weekend.

𝗦𝗮𝘂𝗱𝗶’𝘀 𝗣𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿 𝗠𝗼𝘃𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗚𝗹𝗼𝗯𝗮𝗹 𝗦𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱

In recent years, Saudi Arabia has rapidly expanded its global sports footprint through billion-dollar investments and high-impact partnerships - all aligned with its Vision 2030 strategy to diversify the economy, boost global influence, and become a sports and entertainment powerhouse.

Now it feels like this is gathering pace, across multiple sports simultaneously. Just in Q1 of 2025, we've seen a wave of major deals and announcements. Here are five standout examples:

🏀 $5 billion: The Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) is backing a proposed basketball league that will span Asia and Europe, to one day rival the NBA.

🎦 $1 billion: PIF's sports investment subsidiary SURJ Sports Investment acquired a minority stake in DAZN.

🏏 $500 million: Potential Investment in a new Global T20 Cricket League that will play matches in four different locations over a year.

🚴 $300 million: By SURJ into One Cycling, envisioned as a 'Super League' for cycling.

🥊 Partnership: Between the PIF’s events subsidiary, Sela | صلة and TKO to (in the words of TKO CEO Mark Shapiro) "reimagine the sport of boxing, globally".

And all this is happening five years before they host one of the world’s biggest sporting events. They are definitely not hanging around.

Presented by the Kingdom’s Ministry of Investment and Ministry of Sport, the Sports Investment Forum (SIF), is a sports conference focused on introducing sports investment opportunities and fostering collaboration, innovation, & sustainable development in the world of sports.

We’ll be there from 7-9 April, 2025. Get in touch if interested to attend.

Applications Open: Sports Tech Bootcamp 2.0

We're back with the 2nd edition of Sports Tech Bootcamp- A certificate course in Sports Innovation and Technology!

With 6 tailored modules, you'll participate in a mix of live sessions, class recordings, 1-on-1 mentorship and networking.

What will you learn?

• Comprehensive overview of the Sports Tech ecosystem (including sector wise breakdown)

• Current and future trends and key developments in Sports Tech and Innovation

• Real world use cases, studies and live examples

How much does it cost? The course is priced at 849 €

What does it include? 20+ hours of content + Live classes every week & recorded content + SportsTechDB access

Fill in the application form below and tell us why you're interested in this program.

Application Deadline: 1 May, 2025

Top News from the World of Sports Tech & Biz

⚽ Paris Saint-Germain launched a sports innovation accelerator at STATION F in Paris, the world’s largest start-up campus, to attract and collaborate with the most promising start-ups shaping the future of sports.

🏒 SAP and the NHL unveiled Front Office App to transform Hockey operations. The SAP-NHL Front Office App helps streamline and centralize access to key data for general managers and hockey operations departments.

🎾 Sportradar will produce AI-powered 4Sight streams for 62 ATP tournaments this year, up from nine in 2024.

🎾 The Credit One Charleston Open is the first Hologic WTA Tour clay tournament to use Electronic Line Calling Live (ELC Live) when the event is held from March 29-April 6 at Credit One Stadium on Daniel Island.

📢 Catapult announced the launch of Vector 8, which empowers teams to make precise, real-time decisions, streamline operations with faster, more efficient workflows, and gain clearer insights into athlete performance.

⛳ LIV Golf is launching its own version of the 'Creator Classic', but the competition with YouTube golfers will be very different. Here's why.

🏏 BCCI introduced a new and improved technology system to refine no ball and wide decisions in IPL 2025, that will measure waist, shoulder and head height of batters.  

🏀 Boston is one of eight cities slated to receive a BIG3 franchise, the league announced.

🤝 Svexa has been accepted to the NVIDIA Inception Program, designed to help startups accelerate technical innovation and business growth at all stages. Check them out on our pod here. 

⚽ Manchester City Women announced a new global partnership with leading Blood Flow Restriction (BFR) wearables company Hytro.

🎾 Jessica Pegula has entered the gaming arena, joining Call of Duty: Mobile’s “Make it Mythic” campaign, where she’s reimagined as a mythic version of one of the game’s most popular characters. The No. 4-ranked WTA player has partnered with Activision Blizzard on the project.

🕫 The Queensland Government confirmed plans to build a new 63,000-seater stadium for the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

💪🏽 India has submitted an ‘expression of interest’ to stage the 2030 Commonwealth Games, potentially the perfect dress rehearsal for the country’s bigger dream of hosting the Olympic Games six years later.

Money Talks:

🏀 Boston Celtics sold for a record $6.1 billion to a group led by private equity executive Bill Chisholm.

💰 Spark Capital, a multi-stage venture capital firm, announced a $70 million first close on a Series C funding round for N.Y.-based Underdog, one of the fastest-growing sports gaming companies in the U.S, now valued at $1.2 billion.

💰 A new boxing format which promises to eliminate often-controversial human judging decisions is in talks to raise $50 million from heavyweight investors amid a broader shake-up in the funding and marketing of combat sports.

💰 Good Good Golf, the next-generation golf, media, and lifestyle brand announced a $45 million funding round led by Creator Sports Capital.

💰 EDGE Boost by EDGE Markets, the first banking-as-a-service solution designed to promote responsible gaming in the U.S., announced its official launch, with an established and quickly growing customer base and a $17.2 million seed funding round. 

💰 Podqi, the automated IP protection platform transforming how brands defend their digital rights, raised $3.2 million in seed funding.

💰 Vienna-based Boxbase, a gym management software for CrossFit boxes, secured a six-figure pre-seed funding round led by Johannes Moser, co-founder of Immerok.

🤝 Endeavor Group Holdings, a prominent player in the global sports and entertainment arena, officially announced a definitive agreement to be acquired by Silver Lake, a leading global technology investment firm, for an undisclosed amount.

🤝 Wellhub, a global corporate wellbeing platform that connects employees with wellness plans across fitness, announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Urban Sports Club, a European provider of corporate employee benefit programs and consumer wellness solutions.

Recap from our content archive:

🔙 STX Article: Innovative Fan Engagement- The Future of Sports in the Metaverse, Web3, and Beyond.

✅ STX Monthly: Last month’s sports tech dealflow, in case you missed it.

💪🏽 SportsTech AllStars Recap: Indian Sports Business and Tech Report series.