Weekly Roundup: Business of Athletes, Sports, & NIL (Jan 30 - Feb 5)

(00:50) - Feel good stories

• College athlete donates $22,000 and Make-A-Wish is hosting an awesome Super Bowl event

(02:15) - Business of Athletes

• The NFL salary cap is increasing from $208.2M to $224.8M for 2023.
• Shinesty, a men's underwear company, signed a deal with Clemson basketball player Brevin Galloway after his “balls” video went viral.
• Former NFL players Calvin Johnson Jr. and Rob Sims have launched their newest CBD product, Primitiv Performance.
• Baseball star Shohei Ohtani has signed a massive endorsement deal with New Balance, other notable athletes include Kawhi Leonard, Zach Lavine, and Coco Gauff.

(05:45) - Name, Image, and Likeness

• Boston College lacrosse midfielder Belle Smith signed a name, image, and likeness (NIL) deal with Senné, a Boston-based real estate advisory and investment firm
• Nick Saban turned down two recruits asking for over $1.3M in combined NIL deals “I’m not paying a kid a bunch of NIL money before he earns it.”
• LSU announced “Bayou Traditions” and also named it the official collective of LSU athletics.

(10:00) - Future of Sports

• The Premier League has acquired an equity stake in fantasy sports NFT platform Sorare as part of a new four-year deal.
• Venturerock, a $75 million sports tech fund that launched last fall, has made its first major investment in POGR, an esports/metaverse product.
• Generative AI text-to-video startup Recut has been accepted into Tennis Australia’s inaugural AO Startups incubator program.
• Sports For All, a multi-sport tech-driven platform, has joined Khelo India Youth Games as a sponsor for the next five years investing Rs 12.5 crore ($3.5M).
• Ballislife, a basketball and lifestyle media company started in 2005, has raised $2.7M in Series A funding led by London-based Oakvale Sports Investco.
• All In Team Sports, a sports SaaS for youth team management, has now raised $1.55 million to date.