🔊 Inside The Platform That's Powering The Future Of Football Intelligence

This week, The 33rd Team, a football intelligence company founded by former Jets and Dolphins front office executive Mike Tannenbaum, raised an eight-figure Series B round.

Investors in this round included Liberty Media, FORTA Advisors, Autumn Road, Dan Senor, Nick Gross, Gary Vaynerchuk, Ryan Moore, Greg Ciongoli, George Pyne, John Low, Silver Falcon Capital, and others.

The company plans to use the funds to expand operations and its development efforts.

Why This Matters?

As much as this deal is about how football is evolving, it’s really a signal of where all sports organizations are headed.

The 33rd Team, founded as a media company in 2021, has quickly become the go-to platform providing football data and insights that help teams make better decisions across the organization.

The company’s main offering is its proprietary Zenith platform, which delivers on-field metrics and analytics after games.

Supposedly, they are already working with several NFL teams.

If you zoom out, the trend is clear.

We’re seeing the same shift play out in basketball and soccer.

Front offices are insistently leaning on software, frameworks, and repeatable systems to be more effective.

Scouting, recruitment, roster construction, player development, injury prevention, and even coaching are decided around models that didn’t exist a decade ago.

The reality is teams can’t afford to rely on instinct or gut feel when player salaries are this massive, and the margin between winning and losing is that thin.

And when you layer on AI and years of operational expertise, a company like The 33rd Team becomes even more crucial and impactful.

The 33rd Team represents the future of intelligence as a competitive advantage.

The investors backing the company understand that.

They’re betting on intelligence as a service, and the tools to help organizations across sports make fewer mistakes and better decisions over time.

Data and analytics aren’t the future. They’re now the standard.

• Midnite Raises $35M. Midnite, a UK-based sportsbook and casino operator, raised $35 million in Series C funding this week. Raine Partners IV led the round, with existing investors Play Ventures, Discerning Capital, Makers Fund, and Big Bets also participating. The company has raised over $75 million in funding to date and plans to use the funds to scale operations, accelerate product development, and support international expansion (more here).

• Otto Sport AI Raises $16.5M. Otto Sport AI, a youth sports management company, announced a $16.5 million Seed round this week, along with three acquisitions. The three companies acquired were SportWrench, University Athlete, and Demosphere. Mamba Growth Equity and Rally Ventures led the round. The funding will be used to accelerate the development of its youth sports platform and expand its AI Lab (more here).

• Diamond Kinetics Raises $12M. Diamond Kinetics, a sports technology company helping baseball and softball players improve their hitting through data and sensors, raised $12 million in funding. Elysian Park Ventures led the round, and the capital will be used to expand Diamond Kinetics’ AI-powered live-streaming platform sidelineHD, which it acquired in 2024 (more here).

• Anvara Raises $3.1M. Anvara, a marketplace for sports and live-event sponsorships, announced a $3.1 million Seed round. The round was led by Roger Ehrenberg’s Game Changers Ventures with participation from Marquee Ventures, Sequel, Bryan Rosenblatt, James Robinson, Jonathan Opdyke, and more. The funding will go towards product development and hiring (more here).

• Swerve TV Raises $2.5M. Swerve TV, an independent programmer of live sports on free ad-supported streaming television (FAST), announced the close of its $2.5 million Series A round, led by Scott Galloway, entrepreneur, podcast host, and best-selling author. Swerve TV operates Swerve Combat, an independent combat-sports FAST channel, and Swerve Sports, a channel dedicated exclusively to women’s sports. The capital will be used to expand live event programming, launch additional channels, and deepen distribution with tier-one FAST platforms (more here).

• NBA Invests In Evergent Technologies. The NBA’s investment arm has made a strategic investment in Evergent Technologies, coinciding with a multi-year extension of their partnership. Evergent began working with the NBA in 2022 to help NBA League Pass meet the growing global demand for basketball by enabling fans to watch games wherever, however, and whenever they wanted. Financial details around the NBA’s investment were not disclosed (more here).

• Peter Mallouk Acquires Majority Stake In Sporting KC. The Illig family, which has owned MLS’s Sporting Kansas City since 2006, has agreed to sell a majority stake in the team to Peter Mallouk, one of the club’s existing limited partners, at an enterprise value of roughly $700 million, according to Forbes. Under the agreement, the Illigs will sell 71% of the team and reduce their stake to just under 10%, league sources say. Mallouk will now own around 80% (more here).

• Crux Football Acquires Minority Stake In FC Rosengård. Crux Football, a women’s soccer ownership group, has made its second investment into a European club, acquiring a 49% stake in Sweden’s FC Rosengård. The club will retain 51% ownership in the company. Crux made its first club investment in October 2025, when it acquired 100% of French top-flight side Montpellier HSC Féminines. Financial details were not disclosed (more here).

• Teamworks Acquires Sportlogiq. Teamworks, the operating system for sports, announced the acquisition of Sportlogiq, a leader in AI-powered hockey analytics. Sportlogiq was founded in 2015 and uses patented computer vision and machine learning technology to track and analyze gameplay for hockey, global football, and American football. Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed (more here).

• Smart2Move Acquires Bio Force. Smart2Move, a Swiss sports-tech company and the global reference for wireless, portable dual force plates used to measure Ground Reaction Forces (GRF), announced its strategic merger and acquisition of Bio Force SAS, a company renowned for its cutting-edge ground reaction force and sports science solutions. Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed (more here).

• The Players Impact Acquires Ledgex. The Players Impact (TPI), a platform and community focused on empowering professional athletes and entrepreneurs through education and investment, announced the acquisition of Ledgex, a fintech platform that provides solutions for multi-asset portfolio management and data aggregation. The acquisition marks a significant step in TPI’s mission to democratize access to wealth infrastructure for a new generation of investors, professional athletes, entertainers, and founders. Financial details were not disclosed (more here).

• Fanatics & OBB Media Announce Partnership. Fanatics, a global digital sports platform, and OBB Media, a multimedia production company, are launching a media and entertainment studio called Fanatics Studios. Fanatics Studios will create, produce, and distribute films, documentaries, live events, and digital series. The company has a wide-ranging slate of projects already lined up, including with ESPN, WWE, and the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics (more here).

• SailGP & CBS Extend Partnership. SailGP, the world’s fastest-growing sailing league, founded by Larry Ellison, and CBS Sports have announced a two-year extension of their US television agreement. The first multi-year US television deal for SailGP will feature more than 50 hours of coverage each season of the Rolex SailGP Championship across CBS Sports platforms in 2026 and 2027 (more here).

• Park Place Technologies, PPA & MLP Announce Partnership. Park Place Technologies, a global IT infrastructure services firm, announced that it has been named the official technology partner of both the Professional Pickleball Association (PPA) and Major League Pickleball (MLP). As part of the multi-year partnership, Park Place Technologies will also provide resources for national tournaments, player engagement, fan experiences, and educational donations to schools (more here).

• PGA Tour & AWS Expand Partnership. AWS has expanded its partnership with the PGA Tour. Through the renewed agreement, AWS will continue as the global official cloud provider for the PGA Tour and PGA Tour Champions and roll out several new tech integrations. This will include a “favorite players hub” within the PGA Tour mobile app and website, allowing fans to track their favorite players each week by curating up-to-date information, real-time stats, and highlights (more here).

• Former F1 Champ Nico Rosberg Raises $100M. Rosberg Ventures, a Monaco-based venture capital firm founded by former Formula 1 World Champion Nico Rosberg, has raised $100 million for its third fund. Rosberg now has $200 million in assets under management and focuses on early-stage startups across multiple industries globally (more here).

• Alex Morgan’s Investment Firm Leads Investment For WTGL. Former US soccer star Alex Morgan was announced as the lead investor in the WTGL, a new women’s golf league in partnership with TMRW Sports and the LPGA, through her firm Trybe Ventures. The investment group also includes business leaders and investors Linnea Roberts, Jenny Just, Susan Lyne, Jen Mackesy, Ellie Rubenstein, and fellow US soccer stars Mia Hamm and Abby Wambach. Financial details were not disclosed (more here).

• Tom Brady Joins Telehealth Startup. Seven-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady is the new chief wellness officer of eMed, a digital health startup that helps companies manage the high costs associated with covering popular weight-loss drugs for their employees. Brady’s role is to help build awareness for the company, and he will also serve on the board of directors (more here).

• Bryson DeChambeau Becomes First Athlete To Partner With Kalshi. Kalshi, the world’s leading prediction market, has signed LIV Golf star and two-time Major winner Bryson DeChambeau. The agreement will reportedly feature DeChambeau in television commercials, social media posts, branded content, and other promotional materials (more here).

• Los Angeles Rams Owner Stan Kroenke Becomes America’s Biggest Private Landowner. Stanley Kroenke, owner of one of the world’s most valuable sports empires in Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, is now America’s largest private landowner after buying nearly 1 million acres of New Mexico ranchland in December, according to The Land Report (more here).

• AIM Sports Group Launches AIM+ Platform. AIM Sports Group, a leading sports enterprise specializing in volleyball, has launched AIM+, its AI-powered technology and media platform. AIM+ is a fully integrated digital ecosystem designed to revolutionize the youth sports experience for players, coaches, parents, fans, and recruiters, transforming how sports are experienced and perceived at the youth level (more here).

This week’s guest on the Vetted Sports podcast is Evan Kirkham.

Evan Kirkham is the Co-Founder & CEO at Outlier.

Outlier is a first-of-its-kind sports betting platform where sports fans can browse, analyze, and execute bets with confidence.

So far, the company has raised over $15 million.

In this episode, we discuss:
‣ How Outlier got its first paying customers
‣ Evan’s advice for raising capital in sports
‣ The long-term vision for the company

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

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