#193 💥New Record: Lakers Sell for $12.5 Billion

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Josh Kushner and Bob Iger agreed to buy the Los Angeles Lakers for $12.5 billion, the most expensive sports franchise sale in history. This comes just one year after Mark Walter acquired a majority stake at a then-record $10 billion valuation. Clearly it's not just energy prices that rise this fast.

This week's feature looks at a growing category in sports finance: investing in athletes' future earnings. Several platforms are building different structures around the same idea. The bigger question isn't which platform wins, but what it means when sports organisations start actively thinking about fans as a source of capital.

Investing in Athletes' Future Earnings: A Legitimate Asset Class in the Making?

Article by our Head of Strategy and Playmakers co-founder Thomas Preiss

A new category of sports investment is taking shape. Platforms like FANtium, Finlete, and Vestible let retail and accredited investors back early-stage professional athletes and unsigned prospects in exchange for a fraction of their future earnings, sharing in the upside as careers progress through contracts, bonuses, prize money, and endorsements.

The appeal extends beyond financial returns. It taps into the emotional connection fans already have with their favorite sports, teams, and players, particularly those seen as homegrown talent.

Investing in an athlete makes you a stakeholder in their journey. The model combines the interactive thrill of sports betting and fantasy sports with the longer-term discipline of traditional investing.

Two central questions follow:

1. What is the best way to structure this type of investment?

2. How attractive is this investment category?

Who's Building What

While the platforms in this space share a core premise of providing early capital in exchange for a share of an athlete's future earnings, what separates them is the structure underneath.

• FANtium: Built on blockchain infrastructure, started with tennis. Athletes tokenize a share of their future prize money, and fans purchase those tokens, with payouts distributed in USDC. Fan perks include tournament access and athlete meet-ups. FANstrike, from the same team, extends the model across sports via tradable athlete coins on Solana.

• Finlete: Uses regulated Income-Share Agreements (ISAs) where investors provide upfront capital in exchange for a fixed percentage of future earnings, with no repayment if the player doesn't make it. It operates as an SEC-registered broker-dealer, selling shares in minor-league baseball prospects under Regulation CF, with investor perks including signed memorabilia and VIP experiences.

• Vestible started with individual athlete ISAs (their first offering was a ~1% stake in an NFL player's contracts) but pivoted in 2025 to institutional revenue-sharing securities backed by college athletic departments and professional clubs.

• Nordensa backs unsigned football (soccer) players before they have a contract, funding trialists' paths to partner clubs like Burnley FC. If the player signs, backers receive up to 9% of salary for five years.

• Big League Advance (BLA) provides upfront capital to minor-league baseball players in exchange for a percentage of future MLB earnings. A deeper look is below.

The Return-Risk Tradeoff

The closest thing the category has to a track record is Big League Advance.

BLA's first fund deployed $26M across 77 minor-league baseball players. The standout deal was a $2M advance to Fernando Tatis Jr. for 10% of his future MLB earnings. When Tatis signed a $340M contract, that single bet generated an estimated $27M return, effectively covering the entire fund. Of the 77 players, 45 reached the major leagues, and BLA's leadership has cited expected annual returns of at least 30%.

But those numbers need context.

By BLA's own admission, roughly 80% of investments generate no return. The model is outlier-dependent in a way that resembles venture capital. Remove Tatis and the picture changes materially.

The deal also produced a legal battle: in May 2026, a San Diego court ordered Tatis to pay $3.4M in overdue amounts, with an appeal planned. When your highest-returning investment sues to void the agreement, it exposes a risk no return model captures: enforceability.

Investors also face structural headwinds. Illiquidity is one: most funds have lockup periods with no secondary market. Regulatory risk is another. FIFA banned third-party ownership of player economic rights in 2014, the rules have been revised repeatedly since, and leagues and federations can change them at any time.

BLA validates a concept, not necessarily a category. Whether the model translates to other sports remains unproven.

Where the Category Is Headed

Two pivots signal where this space may be moving.

• FANtium has evolved from an athlete financing platform into a broader "Sports Capital Markets" play, expanding via FANstrike to let athletes and clubs launch tradable coins while retaining its core fan-to-athlete product.

• Vestible has moved differently, abandoning individual athlete deals entirely in favour of institutional revenue-sharing securities backed by athletic departments and clubs. The delivery mechanisms differ, tokens in one case, regulated securities in the other, but the underlying principle is the same: fans participating as investors.

Early signs suggest the broader category is expanding in the same direction, moving past individual athletes toward sports team financing, even towards specific use cases such as stadium infrastructure, and individual player transfers.

If that trajectory continues, the more significant question is not which platform wins, but what it means for how sports organisations think about fans as a source of capital altogether.

Top News From The World Of Sports Tech & Biz

⚽ LALIGA EA SPORTS became the first national professional football competition to roll out Connected Ball technology across all matches, using PUMA and KINEXON’s system alongside VAR and SAOT to improve accuracy, transparency, and trust.

🤖 A robot fighting competition emerged as a spectator sport in Tokyo, with human-piloted robots battling in a sold-out live event blending AI, robotics, and audience entertainment.

⚾ Apple and Major League Baseball unveiled the September Friday Night Baseball schedule and the first live Apple Immersive baseball broadcast on Apple Vision Pro, beginning with Red Sox vs. Yankees on August 28.

🏎️ Disney+, ESPN, and Formula E signed a multi-year media rights deal to bring all Formula E races to Disney+ and ESPN+ in the U.S. and Disney+ in most international markets from the 2026/27 season.

🏈 Sportico reported that NFL teams reached a combined valuation of $299 billion in 2026, with the Dallas Cowboys leading at $15.5 billion and average team value rising 31% year-over-year.

💸 Sports Boulevard Development Company established a real estate investment fund worth more than $186 million with Rikaz Properties to develop a luxury hotel in Riyadh’s Sports Boulevard project.

📺 Playmakers member SportVot secured exclusive India streaming rights for European football’s 2026 summer club friendlies, featuring 22 clubs across the Premier League, LaLiga, Bundesliga, Serie A, Ligue 1, and Primeira Liga.

🤝 Arsenal extended its Emirates Stadium naming rights partnership with Emirates in a deal reportedly worth £70 million, taking the Premier League club’s longest-running sponsorship through to 2033.

⚽ The Confederation of African Football lost a deal worth more than $1 billion in secured income over eight years after deciding to switch the Africa Cup of Nations from a biennial to a four-yearly event.

⚽ FIFA was accused of breaking trust “through deception” in an open letter issued by UEFA, Concacaf, and the Asian Football Confederation.

🏀 Project B said it would follow IOC and FIBA gender eligibility guidelines when launching its global basketball league in January with a roster including WNBA stars Nneka Ogwumike, Jonquel Jones, and Sophie Cunningham, aiming to provide consistency and confidence for players and stakeholders.

💸 LIV Golf secured a funding agreement with an unnamed lead investor for the 2027 season, after Saudi Arabia’s financial backing was withdrawn earlier this year, with plans for a restructured league model and continued operations next year.

💸 Miraidoor invested in inclusive e-sports company ePARA via the Saitama Shibusawa MIX Innovation Creation Support Fund to support disability-focused e-sports services and regional industry development in Saitama Prefecture.

🤝 Brookfield completed its acquisition of Oaktree for an undisclosed amount, making the Canadian investment manager the full owner of the credit platform that controlled Italian football club Inter Milan.

🤝 Fenway Sports Group acquired a WTGL team for an undisclosed amount, expanding its sports portfolio into the women’s team golf league backed by TMRW Sports and the LPGA.

💸 Yankee Global Enterprises secured $2.6 billion in financing from Apollo Sports Capital, combining credit and equity to support the Yankees franchise’s continued growth and refinance existing debt while the Steinbrenner family retained full control.

💸 Josh Kushner and Bob Iger agreed to buy the Los Angeles Lakers in a deal valued at $12.5 billion, setting a record valuation for a North American sports franchise, pending NBA board approval and due diligence by Kushner’s Thrive Eternal.

💸 The Lewis family, owners of Tottenham Hotspur, explored a bid for a London NBA Europe franchise as part of a consortium with two other sports investment families.

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