Sports Tech Investment Just Getting Warmed Up

In recent years, the number of sports tech companies has grown exponentially. We have little reason to believe this is going to slow down any time soon.

Some of our earliest Lab members are active in sports tech investing & advisory, granting us a front row seat to Portico Capital's move into this space, the NFLPA's OneTeam Collective vetting of early-stage deals, and Go4it's many exciting global moves. And in recent weeks, we've caught up with Ray Lewis' newly launched Legend 52 fund, Seed Sumo's active investments in fitness & health, Sapphire Ventures' sports tech fund, and Peak6 to discuss their newly created Peak6 Sports.

These groups are part of the growing family of active sports tech investors. Firms like Monumental Sports & Entertainment, Causeway Ventures, Bruin Capital, Raptor, RSE Ventures, R/GA's Global Sports Venture Studio, CourtsideVC, Dugout Ventures, SeventySix Capital, Sport eXperience, 1920's Kingmaker Sport, Sixers Innovation Lab, Next Play Capital, and Stadia Ventures among many others are taking their track record in team sales, talent management, sports merchandising, business consulting, accelerator programs, and venue operations into the sports tech investment space.

The sports tech market warrants this attention because it has strong potential to act as a proving ground and influence large adjacent markets like health care, smart cities, and media & entertainment. As seasoned investors make more bets in this space, we can expect the quality and size of deals improve. The smart money is on investors who see the bigger picture - beyond sport - and step up to guide this market's growth.