#185 💰 Two More Athlete-Led Sports Funds Launch

Powering Innovation & Investment Insights in Sports. Every Week.

The athlete-to-investor pipeline continues gushing as Gareth Bale launched a $500 million fund alongside Juggernaut Capital Partners, while former NFLer Marques Colston and retired MMA fighter Nick Edwards launched The Champion Fund. Meanwhile, LVMH-backed L Catterton made its first CHAMP (CHampion Athlete Managing Partner) fund deal and has reportedly entered talks to buy into HYROX.

In this week's feature we look under the hood at the tech engine running the World Cup. The Trionda ball sending 500 data points per second to VAR, robot dogs patrolling stadiums, digital twins monitoring venue operations in real time, referee body-cam footage used in broadcast. It isn't just the biggest stage in sports, it's the biggest live test bed for sports technology.

💡 INTELLIGENCE HUB

The Tech Layer Running Underneath the World Cup

The World Cup is the biggest stage in sports - for teams, players, broadcasters, sponsors and host cities alike. It's also the most demanding live test bed for the technology now operating underneath major sporting events. This year’s ball, the Trionda is a great example. At its core is a 500Hz inertial measurement unit (IMU) motion sensor chip, developed in collaboration with German tech firm Kinexon. The sensor measures the movement of the ball 500 times per second, capturing data on its speed, spin and direction.

That’s just one example. While the Al Rihla ball at Qatar 2022 also had a chip, this year’s expanded 48-team tournament across the USA, Canada, and Mexico is deploying new tools across fan movement, team engagement, player data, officiating, security, advertising, and accessibility:

📣 Fans

• EB Systems: Kansas City startup EB Systems is using its CrowdFlow Beacon technology to measure real-time fan movement across venues and brand activations. Its beacons are being used by brands at every FIFA Fan Festival and host stadium throughout the United States. The real use case is sponsor measurement: understanding whether fans actually engage with activations, how crowds move, and which event investments work.

• Google Gemini: Google signed official technology sponsor deals with the Iraq and Morocco national teams, focused on fan engagement through AI-generated cheering visuals, team anthems, match analysis and fan activations. The pattern worth noting: AI platforms are entering national team sponsorship not as infrastructure providers, but as fan engagement tools, giving teams content capabilities that didn't previously exist at scale.

🏃 Athletes

• FIFA Power Rankings, powered by Aramco: FIFA match data and Enhanced Football Intelligence algorithms power FIFA’s new player Power Rankings. Every eligible outfield player receives objective scores across attacking, creativity and defending, while goalkeepers are assessed across possession and goal-defending categories. Every player at a World Cup has a publicly visible, algorithmically generated performance score.

• Wearables and GPS tracking: GPS vests and recovery wearables are already embedded in elite football. Reporting around this World Cup points to teams using systems from companies such as Catapult and STATSports, while England players have been seen using WHOOP to monitor recovery, sleep and strain during the tournament. The useful point here is practical: performance tech has moved from training-ground support to tournament-day decision-making.

👀 Officiating

• Advanced SAOT, Hawk-Eye and Lenovo AI: Originally debuted at Qatar 2022, in 2026 FIFA introduced Advanced Semi-Automated Offside Technology (SAOT). FIFA says clear offsides can be sent directly to match officials on the pitch, speeding up decisions. Lenovo is also supporting VAR provider Hawk-Eye Innovations with infrastructure, while AI-enabled 3D player avatars will be used in offside replays and broadcast visualisation.

• Referee View: Referee body cameras are also back after being trialed at the FIFA Club World Cup 2025. For FIFA 2026, Lenovo’s AI-driven stabilisation overlay is being used to improve picture quality, giving broadcasters referee-view footage with steadier images. Referee-view footage is becoming a necessary broadcast asset.

🏟️ Stadium Operations and Security

• Digital twins and robot dogs: Lenovo’s tournament operations stack includes digital twins of venues, designed to help FIFA monitor situations in and around stadiums and support real-time operational decisions. On security, Hyundai and Boston Dynamics’ Spot robots are being deployed at the venues in Dallas and New York/New Jersey, while Mexican authorities have also deployed the four-legged robots for security support around Monterrey. Venue operations and security moving from reactive to predictive, with AI-assisted monitoring replacing manual oversight at scale.

🪧 Advertising

• Sportradar: Sportradar is positioning the 2026 World Cup as a major use case for AI-led, real-time advertising. Its advertising stack includes programmatic display, digital out-of-home, video, podcast audio, paid social and paid search products. The broader point is that live sports data is becoming a creative trigger, helping advertisers adapt campaigns around match context, fan behaviour and real-time moments.

❤️‍🩹 Accessibility

• FIFA accessibility services: FIFA 2026 is the first FIFA tournament to provide sign language interpretation broadcasts for every match. Group-stage matches in the USA and Canada will feature American Sign Language (ASL), while matches in Mexico will feature Mexican Sign Language (LSM). FIFA is also providing audio-descriptive commentary for all matches, plus the opening and closing ceremonies, through the FIFA Audio app.

The World Cup has always been a proving ground for sports technology. This edition is broader than broadcast and officiating. It now touches crowd analytics, fan content, player scoring, venue operations, robotics, advertising and accessibility.

That is the real shift. Major events are becoming full-stack technology environments. The companies and systems being tested here will not stay limited to the World Cup. Versions of the same tools will move into leagues, clubs, venues, sponsors and fan experiences over the next few years. The best players get scouted at tournaments. So does the technology.

📰 THE LATEST

Top News From The World Of Sports Tech & Biz

• 💸 USTA launched the inaugural USTA Connect Innovation Challenge, a nationwide open call for US-based tech innovators, engineers, and startups to build tennis technology using USTA and US Open datasets, with three finalists receiving funded travel to pitch at the 2026 US Open and one winner taking a $10,000 prize.

• 📊 DAZN and ADI Predictstreet launched a free-to-play FIFA World Cup 2026 prediction market experience on DAZN, giving fans real-time predictions, sentiment tracking, leaderboards, rewards, and the chance to win match tickets.

• ⚽ FIFA confirmed that a technical outage prevented VAR’s semi-automated offside technology from being used on the controversial call that led to Switzerland’s opening goal against Qatar.

• 📺 CNBC added 11 simulcast WNBA games to expose the league to an affluent business-news audience as the network moved further into live sports after spinning out from Comcast.

• 💸 Indian cricketer Yuzvendra Chahal launched the SprintX Playmaker Accelerator in Hyderabad to support SportsTech, gaming, eSports, and New Age Media startups in India including funding support of up to $30k (Rs 25 lakh).

• 🎮 Electronic Arts pushed further into sports-linked advertising by introducing EA Advertising, a platform designed to connect brands with EA’s portfolio across in-game, community, and real-world experiences tied to franchises including Madden NFL and EA Sports FC.

• ⛳ Topgolf announced that its latest venue in Parsippany, New Jersey venue opens on July 3, 2026 as its first new prototype, featuring golf games, arcade games, reimagined outfield targets and slope the “My Bay, My Way” personalized app offering and 350 to 400 expected jobs.

• 💸 Play the Game launched a public donation-backed Journalism Fund to finance original, investigative, and analytical journalism on corruption, governance failures, abuse of power, human rights violations, and the political use of international sport.

• 🏀 The WNBA expanded its regular season from 44 games to 50 games beginning in 2027, marking another growth milestone for the league.

• 🏀 Knicks championship merchandise became Fanatics’ top-selling championship gear across all sports within the first 24 hours of a title, following New York’s first NBA Finals victory in 53 years.

• 🏀 The 2026 NBA Finals between the New York Knicks and San Antonio Spurs averaged 20.6 million viewers on ABC and ESPN, becoming the most-watched NBA Finals since 1998 and capping the league’s most-watched postseason in 28 years.

• 🏏 JioStar reported that IPL 2026 became the tournament’s most-watched season ever, crossing 1.2 billion viewers across platforms, reaching 870 billion minutes of watch time, and drawing more than 400 million viewers for the final.

• 🏎️ Formula 1 reported a 35% reduction in its carbon footprint since 2018, keeping the series on track for its Net Zero 2030 target after cutting emissions across freight, logistics, broadcast, race operations, factories, facilities, and offices.

• 🎾 Wimbledon increased its 2026 prize money by 20% to a record £64.2 million, the largest uplift in tournament history, with ATP and WTA champions set to receive £3.6 million each and first-round losers receiving £80,000.

• 💸 Gareth Bale and Juggernaut Capital Partners launched the Juggernaut Sports Fund, targeting more than $500 million to invest across teams and leagues, youth sports, women’s sports, and golf, hospitality and experiential assets.

• 💸 Retired athletes Marques Colston and Nick Edwards launched The Champion Fund to make sports investing more accessible, with four early investments already made.

• 💰 Rocapine, a Paris-based wellness venture studio building apps designed to help people build healthier habits, raised $13 million in Series A funding led by Educapital, with participation from Daphni, Ring Capital, Centre Court Capital, and high profile individual investors.

• 💰 swsh, a New York-headquartered AI-powered fan engagement platform for live experiences, raised $4 million in seed funding led by Game Changers Ventures, with participation from Stellation Capital, SignalFire, MaC Venture Capital and prominent individuals.

• 💰 Hexis, a performance nutrition platform built on carbohydrate periodisation science, raised $2.1 million (€1.85 million) in seed funding led by APEX Capital, with participation from Enterprise Ireland and ScaleX, to accelerate its elite sport offering and fund a direct-to-consumer expansion later this year.

• 💰 Vibefam, an AI-powered operating system for fitness and wellness businesses with operations in Singapore and New York, raised $1 million in seed funding led by a Singapore-based family office, with backing from Hustle Fund, Ignite Asia, and strategic fitness and wellness investors.

• 💰 DRIVE, a Vancouver-based sports technology company building a Smart Arena network for hockey analytics, secured a $100k government AI grant from the National Research Council’s IRAP to bring Sports AI to market and passed its 2025 player-tracking volume in record time.

• 💰 Rohit Sharma invested in fitness startup Fittr for an undisclosed amount, moving from ambassador to investor.

• 🤝 Fox Corporation agreed to acquire Roku for $22 billion, in cash & shares to combine Fox’s news, sports, and entertainment channels with Roku’s streaming hardware, Roku Channel platform, and connected-TV reach.

• 🤝 Seven Seven Six, Alexis Ohanian’s venture capital firm, acquired college-focused trading card company ONIT for an undisclosed amount, with sports executive Evan Parker joining as CEO.

• 💸 L Catterton is eyeing the fast-growing fitness racing market as their CHAMP fund invested nearly $50 million for a minority stake in US activewear brand Rhoback, while also reportedly entering exclusive talks to buy a stake in extreme fitness brand HYROX from Infront Sports & Media for an undisclosed amount.

• 💸 BIG3 agreed to go public through a business combination with Graf Global Corp. at a $290 million pre-money valuation, with Ice Cube, Jeff Kwatinetz, and Clyde Drexler continuing to lead the 3-on-3 basketball league and the transaction expected to close in Q4 2026.

• 💸 Pau Gasol’s Gasol16 Ventures proposed a $63 million (€55 million) investment in Spain’s Liga F and its 16 clubs to professionalize the women’s football league’s commercial model and accelerate its internationalization, pending approval at an extraordinary club assembly on June 29.

• 🤝 Daniel Kretinsky agreed to buy additional West Ham United shares from Vanessa Gold for an undisclosed amount, making the Czech billionaire the club’s largest shareholder.

• 🤝 Ares Management and Michele Kang have neared a deal to take control of financially strained French football club Olympique Lyonnais for an undisclosed amount.

• 🤝 The US billionaire owners of Crystal Palace explored a sale of the Premier League club for an undisclosed amount and appointed Raine Group to handle a process.

• 💸 Manchester United took out a further $125 million in long-term debt, refinancing borrowings linked to the Glazer family’s 2005 takeover and taking total debt to $550 million at a higher interest rate.