With $52B in announced and/or closed deal value in H1, sports tech continues to be one of the most active sectors driven by robust M&A activity, substantial private financing, and steady capital inflows. The first half was particularly active with consolidation and private financing across youth sports and digital media segments. $6.6B of record private financings were raised and investor interest in the sports ecosystem continues to rise with over $3.5B of new funds announced.

Download the full Global Sports Tech Market H1 2025 Report for a deep dive into deal and fundraising activity, buyers and investors to watch, key headlines in the sector, public market valuations and our outlook for the rest of the year.

Key findings include:

• With over $32B in disclosed deal value across 233 announced and/or closed deals, sports tech remained a highly active M&A market, matching H2’24 levels. While H1’25 saw completion of several major Endeavor/TKO deals, 217 new M&A deals were announced, led by TSG Consumer’s $1.5B acquisition of EōS Fitness leading the charts. Other notable announced deals included RTL Group’s $613M acquisition of Sky Deutschland to create a large streamer of German content, and Disney’s combination of Hulu + LiveTV with FuboTV, which resolved the Venu Sports antitrust lawsuit.
• The $40B youth sports market saw some consolidation across recruiting, team management, and media segments led by IMG Academy’s acquisition of SportsRecruits. Other notable deals include Stack Sports/Genstar acquiring Playmetrics from BSIP/PSG, PlayOn/KKR acquiring MaxPreps, On3’s acquisition of Rivals from Yahoo and LegaueApps/Accel-KKR picking up Mod11. H1’25 continued to reflect further consolidation in the media space, as major platforms are racing to control and distribute premium live sports content in an increasingly competitive streaming environment.
• A record $6.6B was raised in private financings through 239 deals in H1. While over 80% of deal count were early-stage, Infinite Reality (now Napster) led the financing pack with its $3B raise, followed by DAZN’s $1.8B raise from SURJ Sports Investment and Sir Leonard Blavatnik to accelerate growth in sports media rights consolidation. Other notable deals include Teamworks reaching Unicorn status following a $235M raise while Unrivaled Sports and Rocket Youth secured $120M and $100M respectively, highlighting strong investor interest in youth sports.
• Top investors focused on early-to-late-stage financings include Bolt Ventures, Avenue Capital Group, and Will Ventures, while seed stage investment activity was led by Alumni Ventures, Elysian Park Ventures, and Courtside VC.
• Investor interest in the sports ecosystem continues to rise with over $3.5B in new funds announced in H1. Checketts Sports/The Cynosure Group are targeting over $1.2B in fund commitments, while Qualtrics founder Ryan Smith and Accel’s Ryan Sweeney are raising the $1B Halo Experience fund (with $875M already secured). Additionally, Mark Cuban’s Harbinger Sports raised $750M to invest in sports franchises, TPG has partnered with Rory McIlroy’s Symphony Ventures to invest across sports assets, and Ariel Investments launched a new woman’s sports-focused fund.

• The first half of the year saw the completion of some of the high value transformation deals and a continued rise in small to mid-sized strategic M&A deals and we expect this consolidation trend to continue and several transformative deals to occur.
• M&A activity is anticipated to continue being strong as both strategics and PE backed platforms are very active in the market. The consolidation trend in the digital media segment is expected to continue, and we anticipate M&A to grow around highly fragmented verticals in the ecosystem such as youth sports, sporting agencies, and sporting venues/facilities.
• Record $6.6B of private financings in H1 signals a growing appetite from investors towards mid to late-stage financings. While early-stage financings continue to make up a major portion of total deals, we saw growth in later stage financings and expect this trend to continue as investors continue to back interesting companies in segments across youth sports, women sports, emerging leagues, performance analytics, sports betting etc.
• With several new funds being announced (over $3.5B) for targeted investments and acquisitions across the sports ecosystem, we expect this capital pool to further heighten the market activity in 2025 and beyond.
• With sports tech public markets showing strong recovery and outperforming the broader index, several IPO-ready sports tech companies are exploring IPOs again and we expect some of them to list in the coming period.
• AI, Fan engagement and experience, performance analytics, ticketing and venue management continue to be the hot segments from M&A and financings standpoint.