#160 ⚽ FIFA's New Football Game Lands on Netflix

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It's been a busy week for Netflix's Sports team, which made two major partnership announcements, with FIFA and Barstool Sports. Meanwhile, M&A teams are rushing to close deals before year-end: six acquisitions were announced in the last week, including deals from Teamworks and Wasserman.

💡 GLOBAL SPORTS TECH VC REPORT

Alt-Casts Go Mainstream

Staying on Key Trends highlighted in our recently published Global SportsTech VC Report, this week we're spotlighting the rise of Alt-Casts, or Alternative Broadcasts, which have evolved from experimental add-ons to standard infrastructure.

Rights holders are now layering creator-led co-streams, AI-generated multilingual commentary, metaverse feeds, and vertical mobile broadcasts on top of primary feeds to reach younger, global, and digitally native audiences. These formats allow broadcasters to test new packages without altering the core feed and give fans more personalized viewing experiences.

From FIFA partnering with creator channels to leagues deploying GenAI commentary across 150+ languages, alt-casts are becoming table stakes for modern sports media.

Here are some ‘Companies to Watch’ in this space

• Playback.tv: Enables creators to host live streams of matches, driving fan interaction and expanding viewership.

• Camb.ai: Dubs live Major League Soccer matches into more than 150 languages.

• Bolt6: Collaborated with Tennis Australia to produce animated, augmented live streams for YouTube.

• Beyond Sports: Works with the NFL, NBA, and NHL to create animated broadcasts designed to engage younger audiences.

• Creator Sports Network: Empowers creators to act as a distribution network for live sports content.

Read the Global SportsTech VC Report 2025 to explore the other two top trends shaping sports innovation, plus the top-funded companies and sectors

If you need the complete picture for investment, strategy, partnerships or planning, the PRO report and Intelligence Hub provides the granularity needed for decision making. These are intelligence tools built for serious dealmakers.

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📰 THE LATEST

Top News From The World Of Sports Tech & Biz

🎮 FIFA announced it would launch a new football video game exclusively on Netflix ahead of the 2026 World Cup, marking a major next step following their acrimonious split from Electronic Arts .

🎙️ Netflix agreed to pay Barstool Sports an eight-figure annual fee under a multi-year deal as part of its push to entice creators to migrate the video forms of their podcasts from YouTube to the subscription streaming platform.

🏈 ESPN launched the MNF Playbook with Next Gen Stats, an AI-driven alternate NFL broadcast debuting December 22 that integrated real-time player tracking, analytics and predictive insights.

🏟️ Saudi Arabia’s Event Investment Fund partnered with Legends Global to develop and operate new sports and entertainment venues, starting with an Olympic standard shooting range.

🥽 ESPN began using a VR tool called Virtual Medicine to help injury analyst Stephania Bell visually explain NFL injuries through immersive 3D medical simulations.

🏅 The VOICEINSPORT Foundation launched a multi-year VISF Grant for Women in Sport Science Research to address gender gaps by funding and supporting women-led research in sports performance and health.

🏀 The NBA and Amazon Web Services rolled out a new AI engine that processes vast amounts of tracking and game data to deliver next-generation insights for fans, players and coaches through real-time analytics and advanced visualisation.

📺 NBCUniversal unveiled new ad-tech formats including “Arrival Ads” on Peacock, designed to target viewers the moment they open the app as the company sought to better monetise its growing investment in live sports and major events.

⚽ The 2025 MLS Cup delivered record engagement with 4.6 million viewers across platforms and the youngest audience in league history, as nearly 70 percent of viewers were under the age of 35.

🏈 NFL owners approved up to $32 million in investment through the league’s 32 Equity arm to launch a new professional flag football league, authorising the search for an operating partner and confirming Munich as part of the NFL’s international return strategy.

🏀 NBA Commissioner Adam Silver confirmed that a league expansion decision would come in 2026, with Las Vegas and Seattle identified as the primary candidate markets.

💼 The Big 12 Conference advanced talks on a $500 million private-capital deal with RedBird-backed Collegiate Athletic Solutions, to be structured without selling equity or governance control.

📉 Warner Bros. Discovery urged shareholders to reject a hostile takeover bid from Paramount, in favor of its original agreement with streaming giant Netflix.

💸 Fenway Sports Group agreed to sell the Pittsburgh Penguins to the Chicago-based Hoffmann family for an expected $1.7 billion to $1.8 billion, pending approval from the NHL Board of Governors, exiting the NHL franchise after four years.

💸 Catch12, led by Ja Morant, invested an undisclosed amount in EuroStep Ventures, parent company of Paris-based Levallois Metropolitans, to expand its global basketball footprint.

💰 Omri Casspi, former NBA player and founder of Swish Ventures, raised a $100 million follow-on fund, taking the firm to $300 million AUM, to double down on Israeli technology investments from seed to late-stage growth.

💰 SkillCorner secured $60 million in growth funding from Silversmith Capital Partners, to accelerate global expansion of its sports tracking, analytics and data intelligence platform.

💰 Playtomic raised $6 million in community funding from more than 4,600 investors to support global expansion and scale operations as demand for racket sports continued to surge.

💰 Orreco, an AI-powered performance science firm in Ireland, acquired computer vision startup Data Driven Sports Analytics and raised $4 million in a Series A extension from Mark Cuban, Enterprise Island, professional athletes and existing backers.

💰 Recovr raised $1 million to advance its recovery-focused sports and wellness platform, in a Seed funding round led by JWW Capital.

💰 Recruitment platform ShowNxt received a $10,000 grant from IDEA: Northeastern University’s Venture Accelerator, marking the company’s second award from the program to support early-stage growth.

💰 Smart fitness eyewear Minimis secured its first institutional VC investment for an undisclosed amount from a fund with a large consumer media arm to support platform growth.

💰 Monumental Sports & Entertainment secured new and expanded minority investments as Arctos joined as an investor and Qatar Investment Authority increased its existing stake.

🤝 Teamworks acquired Opteamal for an undisclosed amount to strengthen its athlete monitoring, performance data integration and club workflow management capabilities across professional sport.

🤝 Initial Group, backed by TPG, acquired Silver Tribe Media for an undisclosed amount to expand its digital media management and production capabilities across sports, news and entertainment.

🤝 Wasserman acquired Unik Sports Management for an undisclosed amount, expanding its global football representation business across player management and commercial advisory services.

🤝 Alpine Software Group (ASG) acquired PlayHQ for an undisclosed amount in a cross-border sports-tech transaction, with Drake Star acting as exclusive financial advisor, as ASG expanded its global footprint in sports administration and participation software.

🤝 WIN Reality acquired Yakkertech for an undisclosed amount and launched SmartPark, a connected-field system capturing over 125 live performance metrics from every pitch, swing and ball-in-play.

🤝 Virat Kohli sold One8 to Agilitas Sports and invested $4.8 million (₹40 crore) in the company, joining Agilitas as an investor and co-founder of the One8 brand under its new structure.

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