🔊 Inside The $325M Deal Shaping The Future Of Pro Volleyball

📰 TOP STORY
Top Volleyball Leagues Form $325M Merger

This week, it was announced that Major League Volleyball and the Pro Volleyball Federation have agreed to a deal, which Sportico reportedly valued the combined entity at over $325 million.

The combined league will operate as MLV with its debut season scheduled for January 2026.

It will also feature eight teams in cities including Atlanta, Columbus, Dallas, Grand Rapids, Indianapolis, Omaha, Orlando, and San Diego.

According to Sportico, there are several prominent names in sports backing the deal, including:

‣ Vivek Ranadivé (Sacramento Kings)
‣ The DeVos family (Orlando Magic)
‣ Kerri Walsh Jennings (Olympic legend)
‣ Jason Levien, Steve Kaplan & Jake Silverstein (DC United)

The league will expand to ten teams in 2027, with teams representing Washington, DC, and Northern California to start play in two years.

From there, four more clubs are expected to be added by 2028.

Why Does This Matter?

Volleyball popularity is at an all-time high, and so is women’s sports.

Participation in the sport has increased every year since at least 1980 (excluding the 2020-21 pandemic year), and growth has accelerated over the past decade.

Here are some of the facts and numbers:

• In the 2022-23 season, USA Volleyball membership increased by 9.6% to 408,000 and is going up year over year

• Volleyball is the number one team sport for girls in both high school and college, and the fastest-growing high school sport

• Volleyball owns the record for the largest crowd ever to attend a women’s sporting event worldwide, with 92,000 attending the 2023 Nebraska vs. Omaha match

This merger represents more than just another consolidation.

It’s a power move at the intersection of women’s sports and volleyball’s explosive growth.

And it’s not just about launching a new league either.

They’re rewriting the model: new capital, new governance, and a forward-thinking approach to ownership, athlete incentives, and improved fan engagement.

MLV is betting on infrastructure, cultural relevance, and long-term dominance.

This is the beginning of the commercialization of volleyball.

If they’re right, this could be the blueprint for the next billion-dollar women’s league.

💰 MERGERS & MONEY MOVES 
ESPN Officially Acquires NFL Media Assets

• ESPN Acquires NFL Media Assets. ESPN and the NFL announced a non-binding agreement under which ESPN will acquire NFL Network and certain other media assets owned and controlled by the NFL, including the NFL's linear RedZone Channel and NFL Fantasy, in exchange for a 10% equity stake in ESPN. ESPN intends to deploy its resources and expertise towards the development of NFL Network, distribution of the RedZone Channel, and fantasy, to expand audience reach, increase accessibility and flexibility for consumers, drive innovation, and offer even more high-quality content to fans (more here).

• SEGG Media Acquires GXR Racer World Sports Platform. SEGG Media, a global sports, entertainment, and gaming group operating digital assets, including Sports.com, Concerts.com, and Lottery.com, has acquired GXR (GXR Racer Holdings Limited) for $10 million (~£7.5 million) to deepen its expansion into esports and sports fan engagement. GXR video platform and SEGG Media’s Sports.com app will integrate to launch the Sports.com Super App, a digital ecosystem for the ‘modern sports audience’ (more here).

• Hudl Acquires SportContract. Hudl, the world’s leading provider of cloud-based video and data tools for sports, announced the acquisition of SportContract, a hockey-first software platform built to streamline video, data, and communication workflows for professional and youth teams. The acquisition deepens Hudl’s investment in hockey and builds on the company’s commitment to deliver sport-specific solutions. Terms of the deal were not disclosed (more here).

• VOW Raises Seed Round. VOW, a NYC-based provider of an AI-supported operating system purpose-built for the live experience economy, raised an undisclosed amount in Seed funding. The round was led by KB Partners with participation from Capitalize VC, Jim Kaplan of Chasella Capital and Two Kap Ventures, Elizabeth Brooks as lead for Better Angels Ventures, and Alumni Ventures Sports Fund. Prior pre-seed investors included Techstars Sports, Everywhere Ventures / The Fund XX, Chloe Capital, and Blue Falcon (more here).

• TeamLinkt Raises $8.3M. TeamLinkt, a Saskatoon-based all-in-one sports management solution, has successfully closed a Series A funding round, raising $6 million (CAD 8.3 million) from Growth Street Partners. The capital aims to boost TeamLinkt’s innovative sports management software, which serves over 3,000 organizations and three million users worldwide. The funds will be utilized to enhance product development, expand customer support, and further integrate AI into their platform (more here).

• Levr Bet Raises $3M. Levr Bet, the world’s first leveraged sports betting platform, announced a $3 million round led by Blockchain Capital and Maven 11. This brings the startup’s total funding to $5.3 million, following an earlier Pre-Seed round led by Third Earth Capital and supported by other crypto-focused firms such as Big Brain, DeWhales Capital, FunFair Ventures, and Chorus One. The startup aims to redefine the sports betting industry by introducing leveraged betting, improved odds, and an in-game order book-based exchange (more here).

 🤝 PARTNERSHIPS & COLLABORATIONS
AEG Expands Partnership With Amex

• AEG & American Express Expands Partnership. AEG, the world’s leading sports and live entertainment company, and American Express have expanded their long-standing global partnership. The deal strategically expands the partnership across five key verticals to reach fans at a wide range of premier AEG properties and events globally – venues, festivals, touring, ticketing, and sports. American Express will be AEG’s official payment partner across more than 40 marquee assets and four continents, making this AEG’s largest annual partnership and a cornerstone of Amex’s global music and entertainment platform (more here).

• Serie A & Genius Sports Form Partnership. Genius Sports, a world-leading sports data and technology company, has secured a deal with Italian soccer’s top-tier Serie A to deliver official data and video streams to sportsbook partners through its BetVision platform over the next four seasons. The deal includes data and streaming rights for the Coppa Italia and Supercoppa Italiana knockout competitions, with the Supercoppa now a four-team tournament, between the 2025-26 and 2028-29 campaigns. Genius Sports also gains media rights to Serie A (more here).

🔊 ATHLETES & OTHER NEWS
DICK’S Sporting Goods Announces Massive Content Move

• Dick’s Sporting Goods Launches Entertainment Studio. Dick’s Sporting Goods, a leading athletic equipment company, announced that it will be launching a new studio for in-house content and production. Cookie Jar & A Dream Studios, as it’s called, will allow DICK’s to continue the production of feature-length and short-form projects, as they have done since 2014. DICK’s productions have already won two Sports Emmys in the past. The first came in 2015, when “We Could Be King” won Outstanding Sports Documentary. The second was “The Turnaround,” which was released on Netflix and won Outstanding Short Documentary last year (more here).

• Alex Ovechkin Partners With Russian Technology Company. Washington Capitals star Alex Ovechkin has partnered with a Russian technology company, Yandex, and its streaming platform, Kinopoisk, to produce a movie, series, or documentary about his NHL career. The Moscow native began his professional career in the Russian league, now known as the KHL, and has played in the NHL for 20 years. He is expected to participate in commercials and serve as a Yandex ambassador as part of the deal (more here).

• NBA Africa Announces 2nd Edition Of Triple-Double Startup Accelerator. NBA Africa recently announced the second edition of the startup accelerator program the league launched last year to support the continent’s technology ecosystem and the next generation of African entrepreneurs. NBA Africa Triple-Double Accelerator will field applications from early-stage African startup businesses and select 10 companies to provide mentorship and financing, with support from operating partner ALX Ventures and its new official partner, ServiceNow (more here).

• Whitecap Sports Group Launches Women’s Sports Division. Whitecap Sports Group, a sports M&A, investment banking, and advisory firm, has created the first of its kind business unit dedicated solely to women’s sports, and has elevated Chelsee Washington to lead the new division. Chelsee is a former NWSL player and currently serves as an investment banking associate within WSG, where she has advised on and/or facilitated numerous successful closings in women’s leagues, including team ownership transactions within the NWSL, USL Super League, Northern Super League (NSL), and WNBA (more here).

🎙️ PODCAST INTERVIEWS
Real Estate Mogul To Team Owner With Jordan Stuart, Co-Owner Of Loudoun United FC & DC Power FC

This week’s guest on the Vetted Sports podcast is Jordan Stuart.

Jordan Stuart is the Director of Sports & Entertainment at Keller Williams Realty as well as a co-owner of the USL teams Loudoun United FC and DC Power FC.

He is also the club President of DC Power FC and a former collegiate soccer player at Haverford College.

In this episode, we discuss:
‣ How he got into team ownership
‣ The nuances of running a sports organization
‣ Some of the most important factors when working with athletes

Check out the full episode here: Apple | Spotify | YouTube