#194 ⚽ Bezos-Backed Group Values Liverpool at $7.1 Billion

Sports Tech & Venture Intelligence. Every Week.

We flagged the Bezos-Liverpool interest in #190. Last Friday, FSG made it official: a minority stake in Liverpool was sold at a ~$7.1 billion valuation to a consortium led by Amit Bhatia (son-in-law of UK-based Indian billionaire Lakshmi Mittal) who will become vice-chairman, and backed by Jeff Bezos and others.

Initially reported at around 30%, it later emerged the consortium actually acquired roughly 38%. More significantly, the BBC reported that the deal includes a unilateral option for the consortium to buy a controlling stake within the next 12 months. Clearly this deal is primed for more action.

Speaking of the Premier League, it’s back today and so is Fantasy Premier League. In this week's feature, we look at how a game that started with 76k players in 2002 grew to 13M players last year and spawned an entire economy along the way.

Fantasy Football: The Original Sports Tech Product

The Premier League is back today. Another nine months of one of the most compelling leagues in world sport.

It also means the return of Fantasy Premier League, the English Premier League's official fantasy game.

Launched in 2002/03, FPL reportedly attracted 76,200 players in its first season. Last season, it crossed 13 million for the first time, with that number expected to grow further this year. That's roughly 170x growth, or a CAGR of around 24% over 24 years.

Each player making decisions about transfers, captaincy, fixtures and whether that new forward the promoted team signed is going to take penalties or not.

In many ways, fantasy might be the original consumer sports tech product.

60 Years of Reinvention

Modern fantasy sports traces its roots back more than 60 years, from early American football drafts in the 1960s through Rotisserie Baseball in the 1980s and internet-based games in the 1990s.

Technology progressively removed the friction, what once required friends manually drafting teams and calculating scores from newspaper statistics could suddenly be done automatically and at enormous scale.

And the product continues to evolve. Apart from new formats such as FPL Draft, this season the Premier League and Microsoft have launched an AI-powered FPL Companion using official league data to help managers with analysis and decisions.

The Ecosystem Around the Game

The growth of fantasy has created an entire economy around playing it.

There are now thousands of creators analysing the game across YouTube, podcasts, newsletters and social media. Many monetise those audiences through advertising, sponsorships, premium subscriptions on YouTube & Patreon, and paid communities on Discord.

Others have gone further and built products specifically for fantasy players: statistical models, transfer planners, price predictors, AI recommendations and dedicated apps. We've personally used several paid and free tools, all for the best chance of winning bragging rights amongst friends, and some cash to go with it. Yes, we’re in a few different prize pools with payouts through the season. Fantasy Football Hub, LazyFPL, LiveFPL & PlanFPL are our favourites.

The game created an audience. The audience birthed creators. And the creators built businesses that engage people even further in the game. A powerful flywheel.

Mega Deal Flow

Beyond the FPL community, the bigger evolution has been fantasy sector constantly reinventing itself through new formats, creating some enormous businesses along the way.

• DraftKings, founded in 2012 as a daily fantasy company, now has a market cap of around $13 billion.

• FanDuel, launched in 2009, was valued at approximately $31 billion when Flutter took full ownership last year.

• Sorare raised a $680 million Series B at a $4.3 billion valuation just three years after launching in 2018.

• More recently, Allwyn acquired 62.3% of PrizePicks (founded 2015) for $1.6 billion, implying a $2.5 billion enterprise value.

• Last month, IG Group agreed to acquire Underdog (founded 2020) for up to $1.3 billion, explicitly describing the opportunity around the convergence of trading, entertainment, prediction markets and fantasy.

This is before listing out a host of earlier stage venture investments. Serious capital continues to flow into the sector.

Gaming as an engagement layer

There is obviously an important distinction between free-to-play fantasy, real-money fantasy, prediction games and regulated sports betting.

But from an engagement perspective, they share one incredibly powerful characteristic: They give fans a reason to care about more moments, more players and more games.

That's why gaming in its various forms has become such an important layer around live sport. And why fantasy continues to reinvent itself more than 60 years after someone first had the slightly ridiculous idea of assembling an imaginary team of real athletes.

This weekend we'll be watching the Premier League as usual. With a close eye on newly promoted Coventry City.

Not because we've suddenly developed a deep appreciation for them. It's because they play fellow newcomers Hull City next week, and its very important to know which players to target for that fixture.

Our fantasy teams have given us a reason to care.

World Football Summit

🏆 THE FINALISTS FOR THE 2026 WFS AWARDS ARE HERE

We're proud to reveal the finalists for the 2026 WFS Awards, celebrating the professionals and organisations elevating the game, expanding the business, and deepening football's impact on society.

💡 Most Innovative Supplier by SportsTechX

• Biolyz

• Together with Empa (Swijin)

• Trajektory

Winners will be revealed on 3 September, with awards handed out on 15 September at Teatro Eslava in Madrid.

Top News From The World Of Sports Tech & Biz

⚙️ Burnley FC Innovation Hub opened applications for its second year, inviting next-generation sports technology companies to join the club’s innovation programme.

🏈 Travis Kelce, 3 Arts Sports and Publicis Sports launched Tekta, a new NIL activation designed to connect college athletes with brand opportunities.

⚙️ The Premier League agreed to fund live facial recognition technology for London’s Metropolitan Police on matchdays, after the system had been deployed at six previous Premier League matches including both north London derbies last season.

🏒 The NHL and FC Bayern Munich announced a fan engagement partnership to grow hockey in Germany as part of the league’s long-term international growth strategy. The NHL also confirmed 2027 Global Series games in Cologne and Munich.

⚽ Dagenham & Redbridge teamed up with DAZN and KSI for a season-long broadcast partnership that gave the YouTube star selected 2026-27 fixtures to livestream on his channel. KSI acquired a 20% minority stake in the team in March 2026.

⚽ Sky Sports dropped live coverage of Baller League, the celebrity six-a-side football competition, ahead of next season.

⛳ LeBron James launched a YouTube golf channel, with its first post running more than 90 minutes and featuring a reunion with members of the 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers.

🏀 NBA ad sales reached $2.1 billion in the first season of the league’s new media rights deals, as the New York Knicks capped the 2025-26 campaign with their first title in 53 years.

⛳ LIV Golf cancelled its Team Championships in Michigan and ended its season early after weeks of speculation, saying it needed to focus on building its next chapter.

🎮 The Esports Foundation postponed the inaugural Esports Nations Cup to November 2027.

⚖️ IG Group’s $1.3 billion Underdog Sports deal faced a court challenge after Aristotle Exchange Holding Co. alleged Underdog Sports executives duped it into a complex merger before engineering a separate sale of the combined prediction markets firm that would send hundreds of millions to insiders.

💰 CardVault by Tom Brady, a retailer dedicated to sports cards, trading cards, and authenticated memorabilia, announced its first strategic investor group, bringing together influential names such as RedBird Capital Founder Gerry Cardinale; Shawn "JAY-Z” Carter, UFC President and CEO Dana White and other leaders across sports, business, media, technology and entertainment to support the company's next phase of national growth.

💰 Peripheral, a Toronto-based AI research lab bringing spatial intelligence to live sports media, raised $8.7 million in seed funding co-led by Inovia Capital and Deloitte Ventures, with follow-on participation from Khosla Ventures and Entrepreneurs First, bringing total funding to $12.5 million.

💰 Swish Basket, a basketball data tracking startup using video and LiDAR-enabled sensors to track ball movement, player biomechanics and shot stats, raised $3.2 million in pre-seed funding led by Aristagora VC, with participation from Peter Kadas, Nika Capital and RGE Group.

💰 Crosscourt, a tech-enabled premium basketball fitness club backed by NBA All-Star Scottie Barnes and leaders behind Equinox, Barry’s, PrizePicks and Dollar Shave Club, raised $2 million in seed funding, bringing total capital raised to $4 million.

🤝 VALD acquired BridgeAthletic and GymAware for an undisclosed amount, combining athlete assessment, velocity-based training and strength-and-conditioning software into a connected performance technology platform as the combined group was valued at more than $1 billion.

💸 BrknPar Venture Fund added former MLB players Jon Jay and Tyson Ross as Athlete Venture Partners to bring athlete operator experience into the venture fund’s sports investment platform.

💸 Dynasty Financial Partners took a stake in Tom Brady’s NoBull for an undisclosed amount, adding exposure to the NFL legend’s athletic brand as Dynasty crossed $200 million in private markets funds over nine months.

💸 Fenway Sports Group announced a strategic minority investment in Liverpool FC from 1892 Holdings, an investor consortium featuring Jeff Bezos and Eduardo Saverin, as the club added new capital while remaining under FSG ownership. Estimated to be between 30% and 40%, the deal is believed to value the club at ~$7.1 Billion.

💸 Swedish buyout firm EQT acquired a majority stake in Melbourne Storm in a deal valuing the NRL club at about $200 million, marking the league’s first major international private equity investment.

💸 Arctos added a minority stake in the Atlanta Falcons for an undisclosed amount, making the NFL franchise the fourth team in its portfolio after the Chargers, Bills, and Browns.

💸 Gerard Piqué became a strategic shareholder in Global Chess League franchise FYERS American Gambits for an undisclosed amount, strengthening the team’s global ambitions as chess evolved into a more commercially scalable sport.

🤝 José E. Feliciano and Kwanza Jones received MLB owner approval to buy the San Diego Padres for $3.9 billion, setting a new league sale record above Steve Cohen’s $2.42 billion purchase of the New York Mets.

🤝 Leicester City owner King Power put the club up for sale for more than $270 million (£200 million), ending a 16-year ownership period that included the club’s Premier League title.

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