The 4th Quarter: Latest In Sports Tech This Week, May 23rd, 2025

A16z Crypto’s Live Ticketing Bet, TGL’s $70M Detroit Expansion, New Job Board

May 23, 2025

*Photo Creds: KYD Labs raises $7M to help recoup lost revenues by artists and venues.*

Crypto’s Next Billion Dollar Bet: Web3 Ticketing

One of the most popular startup ideas in the sports-tech space is ticketing.

Since the NFT hype wave of 2021, a staggering amount of capital has poured into Web3 ticketing - with surprisingly few success stories to show for it. Now, there seems to be a second wind; a16z Crypto and a stacked set of investors recently placed their bets on a company that might actually win this market.

The Ticketing Industry Is Broken

There are three major issues with the current state of the ticketing industry:

The Ticketing Monopoly: Centralized giants like Ticketmaster (a Live Nation subsidiary) operate with opaque fee structures and ownership models
- Live Nation controls 70-80% of major concert tickets and 80% of NHL, NFL, and NBA stadiums in the US, creating high barriers to entry for competitors
- Miscellaneous fees inflate ticket prices by upwards of 60%
- In 2024, the Justice Department attempted a lawsuit against Live Nation for monopolistic practices, including venue lock-ins and aggressive competitor retaliation
Scalping & Secondary Market Dominance: Multiple unicorn companies have been built off of the primary market inefficiencies (StubHub’s ~$16.5B valuation & SeatGeek’s ~$1.2B valuation and are both looking to IPO)
- 40% of all online ticket purchases are made by scalper bots, exploiting outdated tech systems
- For high-demand events, scalping (buying tickets to resell at higher prices) can lock up a large share of residual revenue
- The global resale ticket market is around $3-6B in platform revenue, but total ticket Gross Order Value (GOV) reaches $40B+ annually

How KYD Labs is Addressing These Problems

KYD Labs (Know Your Distribution), a trailblazing web3 ticketing platform built on the Solana blockchain, just secured $7M in Seed funding led by a16z Crypto’s Startup Accelerator. Their ultimate mission is to eliminate middlemen and give ticket pricing control + revenue back to the original distributors (artists and venues).

By using blockchain technology, KYD allows ticket distributors to bypass Ticketmaster and go direct-to-consumer. Through blockchain’s ledger solution, previously left-out parties in secondary sales (artists & venues) will now be able to recoup on residual revenue through royalties.

For artists and venues → This means stronger controls on both primary ticket pricing and the secondary market. For venues using KYD, they can establish price caps on resold tickets, and this prevents excessive scalping as well as excess royalties from each resale.

For the consumer → KYD eliminates the friction of online purchases by letting people buy a ticket - in under 30 seconds - with just a phone number. By leveraging Solana’s high-speed, low-cost blockchain, tickets are essentially ‘NFTs’ which provide a seamless experience for traceability and resale control.

And it’s actually working

Strong Founder Market Fit: Ahmed Nihmale - ex: Live Nation & Vivid Seats, David Barrick - 4x founder in commerce & entertainment
Solid Traction: KYD processed $4M in ticket sales and earned $1M+ in revenue in 2024
Proven Product-Market Fit: Over the past year and a half, the platform has sold 60K+ tickets, with early clients experiencing 3x+ ROI and selling 2x more tickets
Successful Customer Case: New York’s Le Poisson Rouge (LPR) ticket sales rose 30%, generating millions in additional income

An Attractive Market

Since COVID, the live events market hasn't just bounced back - it has exploded:

The online event ticketing market is currently valued at $58.7B and is expected to reach $99B+ by 2032
Live Nation alone has sold 100M+ in tickets for 2025 so far, exceeding the 98M tickets sold for all of 2019
Ticketmaster sold 637M tickets in 2024, up 2.7% year-over-year

If KYD Labs reaches critical mass, they may fundamentally reshape the entire ticketing landscape…

For the better.

Sports-Tech Market Activity: Investors & Deals

New Accelerator

Future of Sport Lab announces its sixth accelerator cohort, featuring 10 startups in sport innovation (May 15th)
- Check out the complete list of startups here
- Verticals range across digital coaching, wearable tech, and fan engagement, among others
- FSL is a joint venture initiated by the Toronto Metropolitan University and Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment [FSL]

Venture Capital

KYD Labs, a Web3 event ticketing platform that eliminates intermediaries, allowing artists, venues, and promoters to control ticket sales, raised $7M in Seed funding (May 15th)
- Plans to expand to over 100 venues across the US by 2026 and eventually delve into live event commerce at major venues
- Investment led by a16z Crypto [Yahoo Finance]
The Athletic Clubs, an NYC-based squad-training fitness boutique brand, raised $3.5M in funding to expand locations and enter supplemental markets (May 15th)
- Plans to expand from 7 to 15 new locations and enter 2 new markets by 2026
- Investment led by Solidcore founder Anne Mahlum [Athletech]
Asian University Basketball League (AUBL), a new 12-team Asian college basketball league, raises Seed funding from Blue Pool Capital, Joe Tsai’s family office (May 22nd)
- Inaugural season set to kick off in Hangzhou, China, this August
- AUBL to feature universities from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea [SportsPro]

Studio 42, a mobile gaming developer specializing in casual puzzle games, raised $3.6M in Seed funding (May 16th)
- Developing first title alongside a fast-iteration model to test out product hypotheses
- Investment led by Play Ventures; other investors include GEM Capital and Arcadia Gaming Partners [VentureBeat]

M&A and Investments

Strava acquires cycling performance coach app ‘The Breakaway’ in second acquisition this year (May 21st)
- Follows last month’s acquisition of personalized running app Runna
- Strava was initially created for cyclists when it was founded 16 years ago [Strava]
WNBA’s New York Liberty named the highest-valued women's sports team at $450M valuation (May 22nd)
- Recent raise estimated to be roughly 10-20% of the team
- Follows the Liberty’s recent 2024 WNBA championship and announcements for an $80M training facility set to open in 2027 [Sportico]
Dynasty Equity, a global sports PE firm, receives NFL approval, partners with Carlyle Group to invest in NFL franchises (May 21st)
- Football Hall of Famer Curtis Martin to assume role of strategic advisor
- Martin’s firm Ludis, is part of the approved five-firm consortium consisting of Dynasty Equity, Blackstone, Carlyle, and CVC Capital Partners [Dynasty Equity]
Growth PE firm Providence Equity Partners strikes $1B deal in live-event logistics company Global Critical Logistics (GCL) acquisition (May 21st)
- GCL has served events for the likes of Taylor Swift’s ‘Eras’ Tour, Beyoncé, Paul McCartney, and the NFL, among others; set to fuel the 2026 FIFA World Cup
- Providence’s involvement in live events space includes the launch of Tempo Music Investments, stakes in ATG Entertainment & Populous, and recent majority sale of TAIT [SBJ]
Toca Football, a tech-enabled soccer training venue company, raised $35M in funding to grow 'Toca Social' entertainment venues in the US (May 20th)
- Follows a $100M Series F round raised in October 2024
- Extending partnership with the MLS formed late 2022, through 2036
- Raise includes $15M in equity funding alongside $20M in debt from JP Morgan Commercial Banking [SBJ]
Warner Bros. reportedly close to acquiring 50% stake in TNT from BT Group (May 19th)
- Originally a joint venture between BT Group and WBD, launched in 2022
- TNT portfolio rights include the Premier League, UEFA Champions League, and the Olympic Games, among others [SportsPro]
TGL announces $70M Detroit expansion team ‘Motor City Golf Club’, set to join in 2027 (May 20th)
- Detroit Lions’ Sheila Hamp and Broncos’ Rob Walton among those joining ownership group
- ‘Chicago Links Golf Club’ and ‘Texas Golf Club’ among additional speculated expansion trademarks reportedly filed by TGL Holdings [Sportico]
IMG Academy, a sports / education institution, acquires college sports recruiting platform SportsRecruits to strengthen its student-athlete recruiting network (May 22nd)
- Complementing IMG’s NCSA College Recruiting platform
- Follows recent announcement from IMG, including on-campus and online initiatives such as new sport offerings, IMG Academy+ Essentials launch, and a holistic personal development curriculum for partner schools [IMG Academy]
NFL approves Arctos’ Chargers acquisition, among four other minority stake transactions (May 20th)
- 8% LA Chargers stake — Arctos Partners
- 6% SF 49ers stake — Vinod Khosla, William Griffith, and Byron Deeter families
- 0.1% Browns stake — Charles Woodson
- 1.1% Dolphins stake — Joe Tsai [FOS]
Elevate, a global sports agency network, acquired Riyadh-based consultant RISE Group to drive growth in Middle East & South Africa (MENA) region (May 21st)
- Following CAA Sports’ acquisition of global sports PORTAS Consulting with Middle East focus, ahead of regional sports developments such as the 2034 FIFA World Cup [SBJ]

*Photo Creds: ASB GlassFloor’s LumiFlex - first full LED video sports floor made of glass*

Strategic Ventures

ASB GlassFloor, a high-tech sports flooring system, partners with basketball movement tracking ShotTracker for LED-embedded video courts integration (May 16th)
- Following successful collaboration at ASB’s Orlando athlete testing facility, Helix
- Heatmaps and shot plots visualizations now display directly on floor during training or live demos— Aiming to build an open platform for analytics, wearables, and immersive fan activations [SBJ]

WNBA’s Seattle Storm partners with SaaS data management platform Kraft Analytics (KAGR) to enhance fan engagement (May 16th)
- Becoming the 1st WNBA team to adopt KAGR’s data warehouse and GenAI-powered segmentation tools
- Focused on fan acquisition, revenue growth, and operational efficiency across touchpoints [Seattle Storm]

CorePower Yoga, a leading US yoga studio brand, partners with smart ring company OURA for personalized yoga recommendations and recovery-tracking (May 21st)
- Partnership via CorePower app set to track meaningful insights, including yoga effect on sleep, heart rate, stress, and recovery [Athletech]
Chris Paul, Words + Pictures to launch joint venture production company ‘Ohh Dip!!! Entertainment’, delving into full-service content mediums (May 22nd)
- Backed by investment from production studio Words + Pictures
- Mediums include digital media, documentaries, live events, podcasts, and films, among others [SBJ]