#182 📱 Entire MLS Game, Shot on an iPhone

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A US consortium put in a $2.3 billion bid for SSC Napoli. FIFA World Cup prep is accelerating - Fan IDs live, AI concierges across host cities, 40 matches headed to Cosm's 12K LED domes. But such events don't take place without their fair share of controversy, this time it's ticket prices (surprise) as the New York and New Jersey attorneys launch an investigation into ticketing practices.

In our lead this week we recap SPORT[GEN] Summit in Paris - a strong debut means they have earned their place on our ‘recommended events’ calendar.

💡 EVENTS

SPORT[GEN] Summit Recap: Paris Puts Sports Innovation in Focus

The first edition of SPORT[GEN] Summit brought the sports business community to Paris for two days of conversations across investment, technology, media, women’s sport, fan engagement and performance. The event’s strongest part was the breadth of the room: rights holders, investors, startups, technology partners, media companies and sports organisations all looking at how the industry is evolving with new capital, AI, emerging formats and changing fan behaviour.

The summit also featured The Draft, a startup competition supported by BNP Paribas, PSG Labs, AWS & SportsTechX.

Nine companies pitched, three made the podium:

• 🥇 PLAYBACK: An integrated platform for players, coaches and fans. Combining video, GPS, operations, tagging, analytics, clip distribution and player data in one interface. The platform includes AI match tagging, instant video breakdowns, player benchmarks and automated clip delivery, making it relevant for teams trying to reduce fragmented workflows across performance and analysis.

• 🥉Sports Impact Technologies: Focused on athlete safety through real-time head impact monitoring. The Dublin-based startup is developing wearable technology to detect and monitor head impacts, addressing one of the most important welfare challenges in contact sport.

• 🥈 Billy: Next-gen event ticketing platform for promoters across concerts, festivals, conferences, sport events and live shows. The French startup is focused on helping organisers create branded ticketing experiences, sell tickets and grow communities around events, which makes it directly relevant to the fan experience and live sports economy.

The SPORT[GEN] Summit landed as a top-tier conference. Add the fact that it's a first edition really shows the direction of travel for sports tech events.

Great speaker lineup, classy venue, strong engagement amongst attendees. Everything you need to make a conference worth the trip.

Sports tech events are absolutely taking it up a notch. Thanks for the invite, looking forward to the next one.

📰 THE LATEST

Top News From The World Of Sports Tech & Biz

⚽ England and Manchester United defender Harry Maguire co-founded and invested in Feedz, an AI coaching app that converted spoken audio notes into structured player reports for athletes, parents, and coaching staff.

⚽ Lots of news about the upcoming FIFA World Cup 2026

• FIFA launched the FIFA Fan ID, a free physical card and fan memento available to every FIFA World Cup 2026 ticket holder across all 104 matches and 16 stadiums, unlocking a digital experiences.

• Fanatics Markets and ADI Predictstreet launched a FIFA World Cup 2026 Hub for U.S. fans, combining global football prediction markets with tournament news, official player data, and in-app content across the Fanatics Markets app and website in 23 U.S. states and four territories.

• Cosm and FOX Sports expanded their FIFA World Cup 2026 partnership to show 40 matches at Cosm’s shared reality venues in Los Angeles, Dallas, and Atlanta on 27m-wide 12K+ LED domes, while Diversified was set to host a US v Australia watch party at InfoComm.

• The BBC planned to skip the first-ever FIFA World Cup final halftime show featuring Shakira, Madonna, and BTS on its main broadcast and keep its traditional halftime coverage focused on pundit analysis.

• FIFA World Cup host cities deployed AI concierges for visitors, including Frisco’s GuideGeek-powered Frankie, NYC Tourism’s Ellis and Libby bots, and an Official NYNJ World Cup Concierge backed by the New York New Jersey host committee.

• An investigation by the New York and New Jersey State Attorneys into FIFA’s ticketing practices for the upcoming World Cup.

🏎️ Scuderia Ferrari HP used IBM’s AI to overhaul its fan app with games, AI-written race summaries, behind-the-scenes team and driver stories, predictions, and an AI companion, as the team aimed to turn race data into more personalized storytelling for fans.

🏈 The Canadian Football League signed six-year media agreements with Bell Media’s TSN and RDS, added DAZN as a broadcast partner, and named YouTube as a premier platform partner from 2027 in the largest media rights deal in league history.

⚽ Apple TV streamed the LA Galaxy vs Houston Dynamo FC MLS match from Dignity Health Sports Park as the first major professional live sports event captured entirely on iPhone 17 Pro, with iPhones positioned across the venue and paired with a $265k Fujinon Duvo 25-1000 cinema box lens.

🏏 South African cricket legend AB de Villiers joined AI-powered cricket technology platform Kabuni as a super coach, alongside Sourav Ganguly and Shane Watson, as the company expanded its coaching and development platform powered by AI, biomechanics, motion capture, and real-time tracking in India’s grassroots cricket ecosystem.

⚾ Major League Baseball announced a partnership with RISE Worldwide, a wholly owned Reliance Industries subsidiary, to grow baseball in India through marketing, social media, commercial initiatives, grassroots activations, digital content, and a live event in Mumbai in October 2026.

🏏 SI (formerly Sportz Interactive) enabled six IPL franchises to build more than 10 million first-party fan profiles during the 2026 season through its FanOS engagement operating system, converting passive social followers into known, consented users owned directly by each franchise.

🏀 Euroleague CEO Chus Bueno said the league remained open to a partnership with NBA Europe but warned cooperation was not inevitable as Euroleague prepared a major direct-to-consumer push and targeted a €3 billion valuation.

🏒 The PWHL Players Association published individual player salaries for the first time, with 194 players earning between $37k and $126k only 10 players receiving six-figure compensation, and roughly two-thirds earning less than $60,000.

💰 PlayerData, a Scotland-founded performance tech company, raised $12 million in Series A funding led by Pentland Ventures, Darco Ventures, and Bolt Ventures, with Tennis Australia and Kevin Durant’s 35V joining as strategic investors, as it expanded from a lower-cost GPS wearable into connected ball technology and AI-powered video.

💰 Coachbetter, a Zurich-based sports technology company modernizing the operational infrastructure of amateur and youth soccer clubs, secured $8.2 million in pre-Series A funding from Brighteye Ventures, Swiss Founders Fund, ZEN11, Hansi Flick, Paul Lambert, and Julian Draxler to expand its engineering and product teams, enhance platform functionality, strengthen collaborations with professional soccer organizations, and scale into new international markets and club structures.

💸 Zlatan Ibrahimović joined Italian sports performance analysis company K-Sport as a shareholder, global ambassador, and anchor investor to support its international expansion across Europe, the United States, and Asia as the company launched a new funding round.

🤝 SportAI acquired Padelytics for an undisclosed amount, bringing together two AI and video analysis companies to build a racket sports platform focused on padel, tennis, and pickleball.

🤝 Billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong bought a Major League Volleyball expansion team in Los Angeles for an undisclosed amount, with Ben Priest set to co-own the franchise ahead of its debut next year.

🤝 Athvance Sports acquired a significant stake in Benelux MMA organization Levels Fight League for an undisclosed amount, adding a fast-growing fight platform with proven fighter development and international expansion potential to Athvance Capital’s sports IP portfolio.

💰 LIV Golf is seeking up to $350 million in new investment and planned to shrink to a 10-event schedule while giving players equity stakes, as it tried to survive the loss of Saudi PIF backing after 2026.

🤝 A US consortium led by Underdog Global Partners offered about $2.3 billion (€2 billion) to acquire SSC Napoli from the De Laurentiis family.

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