Welcome to 2025, and welcome back to Club Level, Elysian Park's monthly newsletter where we share the latest developments across our platform, exciting milestones from our portfolio companies, and insights shaping the "Sports+" market. As we reflect on the close of 2024, we’re energized by the growth across our ecosystem—both in terms of collaboration among portfolio companies and their impact on the broader industry. From transformative advancements to milestone achievements, 2024 showcased the resilience and creativity of entrepreneurs in our domain. With a strong foundation, we look ahead to 2025 as another year of innovation, opportunity, and growth.
Portfolio Company News
–Sports+ Culture–
Football media company Copa 90 won seven Clio Sports Awards for their "Don’t Ask Suarez" campaign, created in partnership with Michelob Ultra. Founded in 2014, the Clio Sports Awards honor the best in sports advertising and marketing worldwide. (Read more)
Eastside Golf was featured on the cover of Boardroom, where founders Olajuwon Ajanaku and Earl Cooper discussed their mission to transform golf culture. (Read more) The company recently teamed up with Rolling Loud to host the Rolling Loud Invitational, a celebrity pro-am tournament in Miami benefiting HBCU golf programs and local schools. (Read More)
League One Volleyball (LOVB) raised $100 million in funding, led by Atwater Capital with support from Ares Management and Left Lane Capital. This brings LOVB's total funding to over $160 million as the organization continues to build its unique grassroots model. With 66 volleyball clubs across 26 states and 14,000 athletes in the pipeline, LOVB's six-team professional league officially launched on January 8. (Read more)
With a record number of events and pay-per-view shows, the Professional Fighters League (PFL) made waves this year by incorporating Bellator assets, introducing new champions, and crowning six fresh million-dollar winners. Highlights included Francis Ngannou's much-anticipated return to MMA, breakout star Dakota Ditcheva's standout performance, and historic stoppages across all tournaments. (Read more)
Skratch, Pro Shop’s golf content brand, was featured in Forbes with Dan Rapoport and Jason Day, showcasing its unique approach to golf media through exclusive interviews and candid content. Known for blending behind-the-scenes access with engaging storytelling, Skratch is set to expand its reach under new ownership, aiming to elevate golf content across platforms. (Read more)
Togethxr’s team of Alex Morgan, Chloe Kim, Jessica Robertson, Simone Manuel, and Sue Bird were featured in Sports Business Journal’s power players series. (Read more)
Upright Citizens Brigade (UCB) has emerged stronger post-pandemic, with a focus on inclusive, paid performances and talent development. Since its 2022 acquisition, UCB has refined its structure, expanded programming, and added initiatives like livestreaming. The theater is revitalizing the East 14th Street area, engaging local communities like NYU students to foster a vibrant nightlife and boost the neighborhood's appeal. (Read more)
–Sports+ Health–
IDA Sports recently raised $2 million in seed funding, led by Michele Kang’s Kynisca Sports, with participation from Elysian Park. We’re excited to continue to support the research, development, and manufacturing of soccer cleats specifically designed for female athletes. (Read more)
Smart ring maker Oura closed a $200 million Series D, bringing its valuation to $5.2 billion. Its growing popularity has seen sales more than double this year to about $500 million, with total rings sold surpassing 2.5 million. (Read More)
–Sports+ Commerce–
Jackpot has announced a new partnership with 7-Eleven to become its official lottery courier service. Initially launching in over 600 stores in Ohio and Massachusetts, the collaboration will allow 7-Eleven customers to sign up with Jackpot, purchase lottery tickets, and enjoy a promo offer on their first deposit. (Read more)
Ticketbud announced a partnership with Sensible Weather to bring weather guarantees for event goers everywhere. This collaboration gives consumers an opportunity to opt in to ticket protections against unexpected weather disruptions like rain or extreme heat. (Read more)
Snap! Mobile, the leader in digital fundraising, has partnered with Varsity Brands to supercharge fundraising efforts for sports, cheer, dance, and band programs nationwide. By leveraging Snap! Raise's innovative platform, Varsity Brands can provide over 75,000 customers with secure, tech-driven solutions to overcome financial challenges and support student-athletes and their teams. (Read more)
–Sports+ Technology–
Dryvebox, a mobile golf simulator company, is breaking barriers in golf by delivering high-tech simulators directly to customers. Co-founder Adeel Yang recently discussed their mission with Vetted Sports (Read more), while co-founder Jake Hutt shared his journey as a PGA pro and social media influencer with PGA. (Read more) With 30+ simulators across North America and a growing franchise model, Dryvebox is redefining the game.
During the football championship, the Big Ten Conference used Greenfly’s +Engage tool to collect and share fan-submitted videos and photos. Fans uploaded content via QR codes at Lucas Oil Stadium and on social media, contributing to live coverage and a recap video. (Read More)
OnePlan won the Resourceful Event Delivery award at the Host City Awards 2024, recognized for its cost-effective, efficient solutions and commitment to environmental sustainability. The award highlights OnePlan's innovative approach to transforming event planning and delivery. (Read more)
Oosto was featured in Biometric Update, discussing the importance of proactive security for stadiums and live venues in 2025. The company highlighted how its Vision AI technology enhances real-time safety through facial recognition, body tracking, and behavior analytics, ensuring secure, seamless experiences in high-traffic environments. (Read more)
WSC Sports, the pioneer in AI-powered sports content technology, spoke to Insider Sport about revolutionizing digital strategies with short-form content. The company’s platform helps leagues like Ligue 1, La Liga, and the NBA automate content creation, speeding up the process. WSC discussed how AI enables personalized, interactive content to engage younger audiences and the potential for sports leagues to partner with social media platforms for future media rights. (Read more)
Top Industry Headlines
Disney and Fubo are joining forces to shake up the digital pay-TV landscape, merging Hulu + Live TV with Fubo to form a streaming powerhouse with 6.2 million subscribers—second only to YouTube TV's 8 million. Disney retains a commanding 70% stake in the venture, which will be led by Fubo CEO David Gandler. This partnership not only resolves Fubo's legal battles with Disney and ESPN but also signals Disney's ambitious streaming platform plans. Meanwhile, Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery have officially called off plans to launch their Venu sports streaming service, initially intended to combine the live sports assets of Fox, WBD, and Disney-owned ESPN. (Read more)
The global ad industry is set to surpass $1 trillion for the first time in 2024, driven by AI adoption and digital growth. Five ad giants—Google, Meta, TikTok owner ByteDance, Amazon, and Alibaba—will capture over half of all ad revenue. GroupM projects global ad revenue will grow 9.5% to $1.04 trillion, with pure-play digital advertising dominating 72.9% of spend by 2025, while streaming TV surges and linear TV declines. (Read more)
The PWHL drew 14,018 fans to Ball Arena in Denver, breaking the U.S. attendance record for professional women’s hockey as the Minnesota Frost defeated the Montréal Victoire 4-2. The nine-city 'Takeover Tour' is driving league growth, with crowds like Seattle’s 12,608 and Vancouver’s 19,083 earlier this month. Averaging 7,000 fans per game this season—up from 5,844 in 2024—the tour is also testing potential expansion sites ahead of adding two new teams by 2025-26. (Read more)
Spotify closed out 2024 as the undisputed leader among music stocks, with its share price surging over 138%—nearly tripling the gains of its closest industry rivals. This standout performance cemented Spotify's dominance in the streaming space and propelled the Billboard Global Music Index to a 38.5% annual gain. Even with a tough December, Spotify’s year-long success set a high bar for the music industry heading into 2025. (Read more)
The NFL once again dominated American TV in 2024, securing 72 of the top 100 broadcasts, though the number dipped from 93 in 2023 due to election-related programming. Despite the distraction of politics and declining overall TV usage, NFL viewership remained steady, averaging 17.8 million viewers per game. Sports as a whole claimed 80 of the top 100 slots, with highlights including the Women’s NCAA Basketball Championship (No. 76) and the Yankees-Dodgers World Series (No. 100). (Read more)
This Christmas, Netflix made a major move into big-ticket live sports by streaming two NFL games, following its earlier foray into live events with the high-profile Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson boxing match. While Netflix has experimented with live sports before, this marked its first significant step into major broadcasting. With the successful debut and upcoming additions like Monday Night Raw and the next two Women’s World Cups, Netflix is positioning itself to become a serious player in the sports streaming landscape. (Read more)
Opportunities in Our Network
Arena Club is hiring across its marketing and engineering departments.
Demand Analytics is hiring a data analyst and partner success lead.
Diamond Kinetics is hiring a traffic manager.
EL1 is hiring across its baseball operations, baseball/softball operations, contract, football operations, human resources, operations, performance instruction and quickball operations departments.
Freeletics is hiring a DevOps Engineer
Gamurs is hiring across its Destructoid, Dot Esports, Operation Sports, Product, Siliconera, and Mary Sue Departments.
Geocomply is hiring across its executive, revenue, product, legal, growth, design and marketing, engineering, InfoSec, and general teams.
The Gist is hiring across its account and writer departments.
Greenfly is hiring across its account, engineer, customer service, and product departments. senior customer partner manager.
Jackpot is hiring across its marketing, operations, and people departments.
LeagueApps is hiring across its community, customer success, finance, product, and sales
League One Volleyball is hiring across its sales, marketing, customer service, legal, and partnerships departments.
Movella is hiring across its customer support, engineering, intern, and sales departments.
OOSTO is hiring in its engineering department
Oura is hiring across its business operations, finance, customer experience, hardware, IT, marketing, operations, product, and software engineering.
Pro Shop is hiring across its finance and sales departments.
Protecht is hiring across its marketing and partnership departments.
ShotTracker is hiring across its engineering department.
Snap! Mobile is hiring across the outside sales department.
SpotOn is hiring across its corporate, sales, and product & engineering teams.
Swish Analytics is hiring across its data science, general & administrative, trading, product, trading analytics, and software engineering departments.
Tappp is hiring across its engineering department.
Till Financial is hiring across its customer service department.
Upright Citizens Brigade is hiring across its marketing, sales, and improv departments.
WSC Sportsis hiring across its Israel, London, and New York teams.
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