Verizon’s new streaming hub +play will provide free Netflix access to customers who also subscribe to a partnered streaming service such as NFL+, NBA League Pass, HBO Max, AMC+ or Peloton, among others. The telecom giant announced a beta launch of its +play platform on Wednesday, which will serve as a digital home for Verizon’s internet or cell phone customers to access and manage their various subscription streaming services.
The free Netflix offer — a 12-month premium subscription normally valued at $240 — is only available to those who purchase a subscription to NFL+, NBA League Pass, or another streaming service directly through +play, which is included at no additional cost to existing Verizon customers. Verizon wants +play to serve as a digital space for customers to track and manage payments to their various streaming subscriptions, and it will send notifications to alert users of an ending free trial period, promotional offer, or price change to a streaming service.
Other streaming apps that can be accessed via Verizon’s +play will include Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+, discovery+ and A+E Network, as well as content from sports media outlet The Athletic and mental health platform Calm. Verizon is a longtime partner of both the NFL and NBA with deals to deploy its 5G connectivity at stadiums in both leagues.
The Players’ Lounge, a college sports-focused fan engagement platform, announced a seed investment from Draper Associates, a Silicon Valley venture firm. Separately, the Atlanta-based startup also partnered with Brinx.TV, a content company founded by John Brenkus, a six-time Emmy Award winner, who acquired equity as part of the deal.
Founded by former University of Georgia football players including quarterback Aaron Murray (president) and running back Keith Marshall (CEO) — both whom spent time in the NFL — The Players’ Lounge launched earlier in 2022 with the release of the DGD Mafia, an NFT collection targeting the Bulldogs football community. Via NIL rules, many current players at the time, such as linebacker Nakobe Dean (now with the Philadelphia Eagles) and quarterback Stetson Bennett IV (recently a Heisman Trophy finalist), were able to participate and benefit financially.
In less than a year, The Players’ Lounge said it has worked with more than 250 college athletes and generated more than $1.4 million in revenue through both physical and digital activations. It previously partnered with Icon Source, which uses AI to target sponsorship opportunities for athletes based on social media followings.
Kapsul Tech Corp. has designed a protective, high-collar shirt that supports athletes’ necks and can potentially reduce the risk of traumatic injury.
Marketed as the Kapsul Atlas, the lightweight shirt has embedded “Dynamic Neck Stabilization Technology” that protects the area between a player’s upper torso and head. Through combined research with the Canadian Military and the University of Waterloo, Kapsul concluded that its product will particularly help youth athletes whose muscles and bones are less developed and female athletes who they identified as having “longer necks with lower muscle density.”
The shirt/collar was made to be nonobstructive and should not inhibit player movement or neck flexibility. As part of Kapsul’s proprietary research, Kapsul utilized a clinically validated human model known as an FEM (Finite Element Model) that is essentially an advanced test dummy. Often deployed by car manufacturers, the FEM allowed the company to study the intricate impact on a person’s soft tissue, skeletal structure, musculature and fluids after a forceful collision.
Another collar device, the Q-Collar, has also gained popularity in contact sports such as football, lacrosse and soccer. Approved by the FDA, the Q-Collar is worn around the neck to gently compress the jugular vein and increase blood flow to the skull — theoretically limiting the brain from shifting around dangerously after hard impact.
Tony Pollard and Dalton Schultz of the Dallas Cowboys, Casey Toohill of the Washington Commanders and Meghan Klingenberg of the NWSL’s Portland Thorns are among the high-profile athletes currently wearing the Q-Collar.
Mobile sports coaching app Famer has partnered with 3d Lacrosse, the U.S. youth lacrosse organization with more than 2,500 players and 125 teams across nine states. Famer will help produce hundreds of on-demand lacrosse training videos for players, coaches, and parents to stream in the company’s app.
New weekly content from 3d Lacrosse will be added year-round to the app, which will also let coaches create custom workouts and communicate via group chat with their players. Videos from Famer and 3d lacrosse will cover lacrosse skills, drills, game situations, leadership, and mental toughness.
3d Lacrosse was founded in 2009 and is owned by 3Step Sports, the youth sports brand that’s become a $300 million business with more than 700 employees and operates leagues in eight youth sports spanning three million athlete members. Famer signed deals in 2020 to provide youth training content with the NBA Players Association and LeagueApps, the team management platform funded in part by MLB.
LaLiga powerhouse Real Madrid, which has won five Champions League titles in the past decade, is partnering with Ōura Health through its innovation arm to distribute Oura’s holistic monitoring rings to its entire professional team.
Upon returning to Valdebebas for post-World Cup training, Real Madrid players will all receive Oura rings to track their sleep and recovery. Each athlete can also choose to opt-in to the Ōura Health Risk Management platform, a tool similar to what was used in the NBA Bubble that offers additional insights to users and team doctors to detect early signs of illness.
“The Oura Ring allows us to see how our players respond to training, traveling, or for instance, stress and, as a result, their recovery trend,” Dr. Suzanne Huurman, Real Madrid’s head of medical education and head of academy, sad in a statement. “For example, did this specific player get enough time to recover? Are they ready for today’s scheduled training, or should we adapt it to how they are feeling? The 24/7 temperature trend tracking of the Oura Ring also helps to detect signs of illness and gives us the opportunity to react as soon as possible.”
The agreement is formally between Ōura Health and Real Madrid Next, the club subsidiary overseeing R&D and incubating technologies that is similar in function to FC Barcelona’s Barça Innovation Hub. Oura has struck several league-wide deals with the NBA and NBPA, NASCAR, UFC and the World Surf League as well as team deal with MLB’s Seattle Mariners, Formula 1’s Red Bull Racing and the NCAA’s Rutgers football.
Indian cricket star Shikhar Dhawan has launched Da One Global Ventures (DOGV), a $75 million global venture capital fund to invest in sports technology. The fund is incorporated in Abu Dhabi and its divisions will include a SportsTech Accelerator and esports Venture studio.
DOGV’s targeted investments will span multi-stage startups across sports tech, esports, gaming, and Web3. Dhawan, a left-handed opening batsman, has captained the India national cricket team and plays for the Punjab Kings in the Indian Premier League as well as team Delhi in first-class cricket. He’s an endorser for brands such as Dream11, the top fantasy sports platform in India whose parent company Dream Sports has been valued at $8 billion.
Sparrow, which has developed an AI-centric golf app, received $5.7 million from angel investors in hopes of expanding to other sports.
With the round expected to close at the end of the month, Sparrow founder and CEO Joe Chin said his company is in the early stages of a “brand new industry — AI-guided athletic improvement.” Sparrow’s initial offering, the Sparrow Golf App, utilizes AI to analyze a player’s swing and automated coaching tips to correct any player deficiencies.
Granted a strong 4.6-star rating on the App Star earlier this year, Sparrow expects to branch off to other sports in the near future, with Chinn calling AI-coaching “a potential $100 billion market.” Chinn and his partners have already founded and sold three other companies, as well as another unnamed app that was purchased by Twitter for $30 million. This current funding round was powered by the expansive angel network Keiretsu Forum.
FIFA recently designated three research labs as the first cohort of FIFA Research Institutes for Football Technology Innovation. The selected institutions were Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia; Labosport in Lyon, France; and Sports Labs in Livingston, Scotland.
New applications for FIFA Research Institute selection will be considered every two years with criteria such as a commitment of technical and human resources, a pledge to publish findings in peer-reviewed journals and the disclosure of empirical evidence to benefit the FIFA Quality Program Technical Advisory Groups in creating testing standards.
Labosport has collaborated with FIFA since the start of the Quality Program for Football Turf in 2001. Its primary contribution as a research institute will be in the evaluation of playing surfaces, but it has also conducted work in other areas, such as goal-line technology.
Sports Labs first worked with FIFA in 2005 and has been an accredited tester for seven programs ranging from playing surfaces to wearables. A key expertise is in their understanding of player-surface interaction, but they will also work on offsides technology and assessments of ball quality.
Victoria University has led FIFA’s accuracy testing for Electronic Performance Tracking Systems since 2016, which range from wearable GPS to optical tracking cameras. That field has recently grown to include tracking data extracted from broadcast video and skeletal tracking, such as used in the new Semi-Automated Offsides Technology that debuted during the ongoing World Cup.
TickPick, which relies on price-value algorithms and 360-degree seat technology to better serve fans, has become the official secondary ticket marketplace for the NHL’s Los Angeles Kings.
Based in New York, TickPick differentiates itself by eliminating transaction fees and relying on tech to make it easier for fans to locate their seat preferences. Its propriety algorithms give potential ticket buyers a pre-sale look at the price/value ratio of their seat choices so they can spend wisely, and the 360-degree technology gives buyers a realistic, panoramic view of their seats prior to purchase.
The company claims it has saved customers upwards of $100 million across North America with its lack of transaction fees and ticket valuation tools. The Kings are their first NHL partner, after reaching another deal in June to become the official marketplace of the Big3 for the 2022 season. As part of the NHL collaboration, the Kings are incorporating a “TickPick Party Row” in Section 308 of Crypto.com Arena, which will provide fans seated there with access to exclusive inventory and a chance to be seen on the arena jumbotron.
TickPick will also have advertising on the arena’s digital dasher boards, will become a presence on the Kings’ website and will sponsor team social media content such as “Countdown to Puck Drop” and “Game Recap Series.” Back in 2019, TickPick received a $40 million investment from PWP Growth Equity at a time the company’s partners included college conferences such as the Big South and Western Athletic Conference. The company used that money to build out its data team as it began implementing AI and machine learning into its ticket selling.
Infinite Reality, an immersive digital experiences company working with brands such as Warner Bros. Discovery Sports, plans to go public through a SPAC agreement with Newbury Street Acquisition Corporation. The transaction values the combined company at $1.85 billion and is expected to list Infinite Reality on the Nasdaq once finalized.
The SPAC merger is expected to provide up to $128 million in capital to Infinite Reality, whose multi-year deal signed in October with Warner Bros. Discovery Sports debuted “metaverse” fan experiences around the UCI Track Champions League including real-time bicycle speed data, rider on-board camera angles, and an NFT collection of the cyclists. In July, Infinite Reality also acquired esports organization ReKTGlobal, which owns the Call of Duty League’s London Royal Ravens and League of Legends European Championship team Rogue.
The transaction is expected to be completed during the first quarter of 2023. Newbury Street Acquisition Corporation’s leadership includes former Turner Sports COO Matthew Hong, former Columbia Pictures EVP Teddy Zee, and Uber’s chief business development officer Jennifer Vescio.
FC Barcelona has named WhiteBit as its official cryptocurrency exchange partner for three seasons, ending in June 2025.
As part of the wide-ranging agreement, WhiteBit will engage in digital and physical activations around not only the famed men’s soccer team but also the women’s team and other sports in FC Barcelona’s portfolio: basketball, handball, roller hockey and futsal. WhiteBit will also support the esports team and become a partner for Barça Innovation Hub.
Founded in Kharkvi, Ukraine, WhiteBit touts itself as Europe’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. This partnership comes amid a public reckoning of other crypto companies that fell into bankruptcy, led by prominent sports sponsor FTX and joined by BlockFi, Voyager and others.
The news release announcing FC Barcelona’s partnership with WhiteBit cites the crypto company’s highly rated security, its ease of withdrawing funds into traditional currency and its personal data and token protections. Barcelona has struggled financially in recent years but announced a profit of nearly $100 million for the past year.