The 4th Quarter: Latest In Sports Tech This Week, July 4th, 2025

AI Researchers Are The Next $100M Athletes, China’s Robo-Soccer League, New Job Board

Jul 04, 2025

Supermax to Superintelligence: AI Researcher Salaries Now Rival Pro Athletes

Just days after winning the 2025 NBA Championship, the Oklahoma City Thunder signed its star, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, to a $285M supermax extension contract through the 2030 season - paying him $71M+ per year. This move officially set a new record for the highest single-season average salary in NBA history.

While this should’ve shattered most headlines across finance, this was not the most eye-popping contract story of the week.

AI researchers are now rivaling NBA super-star compensation, with Meta reportedly poaching top talent for $100M+ annual packages.

So let’s talk about it.

Meta Is Casting Its Net Like a Sports Franchise

Following its $14B stake in Scale AI, Meta installed founder Alexandr Wang as Chief AI Officer, alongside Nat Friedman steering “Meta’s Superintelligence Lab”

Meta has made at least 10+ offers to elite OpenAI, DeepMind, and other staffers, with comp packages up to $300M over four years, including $100M+ in year-one vesting

Wang’s recent tweet revealed that Meta has successfully recruited key members responsible for creating ChatGPT, o3/o4 mini, Claude, Gemini, and Waymo’s models.

What This Means

Meta is now treating elite AI talent like franchise players - offering not just big money, but multi-year commitments, retention bonuses, and all the drama you’d expect from an offseason NBA power grab.

Why Are AI Salaries Mirroring Athlete Economics?

Scarcity: Only a few thousand AI researchers globally qualify for frontier roles. Meta reportedly targets just ~50 superstar hires, meaning each offer is precious - and expensive

Impact per Head: A $300M equity package only makes sense if the resulting infrastructure unlocks billions in revenue. With AI, it can - and does. This mirrors how superstars unlock broadcast rights, ticket sales, and merchandising value.

Personal Recruiters = Agents: Just like top athletes, elite researchers now use hiring brokers and recruiters - sometimes third-party agents - to negotiate compensation, stock vesting, retention clauses, and deferral structures. It’s no longer the founder-versus-callee dynamic - it’s negotiated, brokered, packaged.

Free Agency & Churn Risk: Meta’s poaching of OpenAI talent - a move that OpenAI leadership described as “breaking into our home” - highlights retention fragility. Similar to free agency, losing one superstar researcher now carries risk akin to losing a franchise quarterback: derailed timelines, morale hits, and IP uncertainty.

Our Take: Do AI Researchers Deserve Athlete Pay?

Hell yes.

A small group of AI researchers already wield outsized influence over trillion-dollar markets. And that influence is only growing.

The comparisons aren’t accidental - they’re structural. Meta doesn’t see top engineers as headcount. It sees them as organizational centerpieces, worthy of athlete-level investment.

Because today, a game-changing researcher can shift a product roadmap, move the market, and unlock new consumer behavior - at the same scale as a LeBron, Steph, or Shai.

Sports-Tech Market Activity: Investors & Deals

Funds

Wisdom Ventures, a VC firm investing in tech-enabled wellbeing, secures $16M for first close of second fund (June 27th)
- Follows Wisdom’s $10M debut fund that backed OpenAI, Anthropic, and Function Health, among others
- Fund II targets $1M-$5M investments in ~35 early-stage startups focused on emotional intelligence, wellbeing, and human-centered tech
- Backed by Reid Hoffman, Evan Sharp, Stewart Butterfield, among other high-profile investors [Athletech]

Behold Ventures, a VC firm investing in early-stage Nordic and European video games startups, closes debut fund at $58.2M (July 1st)
- $21M already deployed across 18 startups, including Dead Astronauts, Seven Stars, and Blue Scarab Entertainment
- Fund surpassed its $52.9M target, securing capital from Europe (54%), Asia (44%), and North America (2%) [GamesBeat]

Venture Capital

Othership, a wellness startup offering performance sauna and private ice baths, raises $11.3M in funding, targeting U.S. growth (June 26th)
- Follows $8M Series A led by Vine Ventures, January 2023
- Secured $11.3M via SAFE, with $7.1M from 43 US-based investors
- Funds to expand NYC presence, including a second location in Williamsburg this summer [TheLogic]
Yaspa, a sports gambling disruptor offering instant payments and identity verification services for open banking, raised $12M in funding backed by Discerning Capital (July 2nd)
- Funds fuel US expansion; new Atlanta office, hiring local team
- Discerning aims to back Yaspa’s A2A payments as a gambling payments disruptor
- Investment led by Discerning Capital, including $10M+ direct investment [Yaspa]

CRED, a predictive Intelligence platform for sports & entertainment enterprises, exits stealth, raises $15M in Seed funding (June 30th)
- Funding will drive expansion beyond sports into broader enterprise sectors, fueling product development, data models, and expanding GTM team
- Investment led by defy.vc; other investors include HOF Capital, Alumni Ventures, and SilverCircle Ventures, among others [FinSMEs]

Edge Sound Research, an audio innovation tech startup for sports venues and live entertainment environments, secures backing from USTA Ventures (June 27th)
- Edge raised $2.7M to date, including $1.9M seed round, March 2024
- USTA’s third investment following backing of PlayReplay and Court16
- Edge, already backed by the NBA, has piloted tech with MLS, Pacers, Twins, Kings, and Wells Fargo Center [SBJ]

Pick-Roll, a social app that connects users with basketball pickup games and communities, receives backing from 2006 NBA No. 1 draft pick Andrea Bargnani (July 2nd)
- Fueling European expansion and future U.S. entry
- Marks Bargnani’s first sports tech venture after prior private equity and VC activity [SBJ]

M&A and Investments

Warner Music Group, Bain Capital collaborate for launch of $1.2B music catalog investment venture (July 1st)
- WMG to oversee marketing, distribution, and administration of acquired assets
- Equal equity from both firms to acquire recorded and publishing catalogs
- Goldman Sachs and Fifth Third Bank acting as joint lead arrangers [WarnerMusic]

Football.Enterprises, a football (soccer) investment platform, launches $150M bond offering alongside $50M Series A raise, expected to close by Q2 2025 (June 3rd)
- $150M bond offering to fund global club acquisitions, infrastructure, and operations
- In talks to acquire clubs in France, Denmark, England; backed by prior $250M strategic investment [Football.Enterprises]

Saudi Arabia’s PIF subsidiary to acquire $20M stake in Professional Triathletes Organisation (PTO) (July 3rd)
- SURJ, reportedly set to take $20M stake of PTO’s broader funding round
- Follows $10M March investment from Cordillera; Series C raise expected soon
- Builds on SURJ’s 2025 deals with DAZN ($1B stake) and Kings League soccer [SportsPro]

Mortgage businessman Dan Gilbert taps Allen & Co. considering sale of up to 15% stake in Cleveland Cavaliers at $3.95B valuation (June 26th)
- Gilbert to retain control; acquired majority stake for $375M back in 2005
- NBA team values have surged 1,100% in 15 years, according to Sportico
- Allen & Co. has recently been active in Cosm's fundraising round and the 16th WNBA expansion franchise process [Sportico]

Cleveland, Detroit, and Philadelphia are the latest to be awarded new WNBA franchises for record $250M expansion fees (June 30th)
- Average WNBA team valuation has surged 180% in a year, now $269M according to Sportico
- All new teams backed by NBA ownership groups, continuing league expansion momentum [Sportico]

Haslam Sports Group sells 10% Columbus Crew stake at $900M club valuation (July 1st)
- Deal sees existing partners, the Edwards family, increase ownership to 30%
- HSG retains 70% stake; Crew value up from $730M in Jan. to $900M in this sale [Sportico]

Telecommunications company Rogers Communications acquires BCE’s 37.5% stake in MLSE for $3.45B, eyes minority sale or IPO (July 2nd)
- Deal lifts Rogers’ stake to 75%, valuing company’s sports assets at $12B+
- Rogers exploring minority stake sale via private equity infusion
- Portfolio includes Maple Leafs ($3.66B), Raptors ($4.66B), Toronto FC ($725M), and Blue Jays; valuations according to Sportico [Sportico]

*Photo Creds: New 3v3 AI-powered robot soccer league in Beijing took place this past week.*

Strategic Ventures

China stages inaugural ‘ROBO League Robot Football’ tournament, an AI humanoid robot soccer showdown (June 29th)
- Event serves as a preview for upcoming Beijing World Humanoid Robot Games
- Four university teams of autonomous robots competed in Beijing’s first AI-driven 3v3 soccer matches, supplied by Booster Robotics [SBJ]

Microsoft partners with Premier League for cloud and AI partnership, expands Big 12 partnership to utilize Copilot tech for operations (June 30th-July 1st)
- Five-year Premier League deal features Microsoft Copilot’s AI to engage fans on data from 30 PL seasons, 300K articles, and 9K videos [SBJ]
- Big 12 Conference to leverage AI agents for business operations and post-game footage review [Big12]

FIBA renews 3v3 basketball broadcast deal with European Broadcasting Union (EBU) through 2028 (June 27th)
- Aims to boost visibility of 3v3 as it builds toward the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics
- Four-year extension guarantees free-to-air coverage of major 3x3 events across Europe; spans World Cups, Europe Cups, U23 World Cups, and Olympic qualifiers [FIBA]