National Basketball Association

A foundational component to the next generation of digital entertainment.

Esports

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    Fnatic is a UK-based esports organization with facilities in London, Berlin, Los Angeles, Shenzhen, and Kuala Lumpur. The team competes in six esports titles including League of Legends, Counter-Strike, Dota 2, Rainbow Six, Fortnite, PUBG, and FIFA. Fnatic has a team of 40 professional gamers across eight game titles and has more than 100 employees in six offices worldwide. In November 2022, it launched a music label (Fnatic Music) in an attempt to diversify beyond esports, followed by the introduction of a fan membership program in collaboration with Crypto.com (March 2022) to offer fans an array of rewards and features.
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    Fnatic had accumulated USD 16.2 million in prize money as of July 2021 with Counter-Strike and League of Legends accounting for a combined 55% of that total. As of November 2019, Forbes has estimated the team’s revenue and valuation to be USD 16 million and USD 175 million, respectively. 
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    <b>Key customers and partnerships</b>
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    Fnatic entered the Middle Eastern market in December 2020 through a partnership with online multi-brand retailer Xcite, one of the largest electronics retailers in Kuwait with a collection of over 300 global brands. The company’s products are expected to be available in over 50 showrooms across Kuwait and Saudi Arabia in 2021. Fnatic’s other partnerships include endemic brands such as AMD and PCSpecialist as well as non-endemic sponsors such as Monster and BMW.
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    <b>Funding and financials</b>
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    In November 2022, Fnatic secured a strategic 
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    with Hivemind Capital, a crypto asset management company. Through the deal, the company is expecting to use Hivemind’s expertise to develop its own Web3 applications and scale digital economies. 
    In May 2021, Fnatic announced that it raised GBP 12 million (approximately USD 17 million) in a funding round led by Marubeni Corporation (a Japanese conglomerate). The round includes participation from Bootstrap and other investors. The round follows its GBP 2 million (USD 2.6 million) in crowdfunding in December 2020. The fresh financing will be funneled toward expanding into the Japanese and Asia-Pacific esports markets. Furthermore, as a result of the strategic partnership between the two firms, Fnatic will relocate its Rainbow Six: Siege team to Japan. Fnatic also reported that it has achieved 80% YoY overall revenue growth, while its digital and physical performance products reached 91% YoY revenue growth in Q1 2021.
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Sports Tech

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    HyperIce is a recovery and movement enhancement technology company specializing in vibration, percussion, and thermal technology. Its technology is used by the athletes in professional and collegiate training rooms and fitness facilities globally. The company is driven by a mission to provide everyone with the innovative technology in accelerating recovery time, preventing injury, and enhancing the body’s ability to move efficiently. HyperIce was founded in 2010 by Anthony Katz.
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Videocites built the first commercial AI-based video-by-video search engine where the query is the video itself. Our novel ultralight informative video fingerprint represents the visual properties of each frame with 64 bits only. It allows us tracking any video content throughout the web or other video repositories regardless of scale, metadata, language, audio or severe video manipulations. Our comprehensive video tracking capabilities open up amazing opportunities in huge B2B markets like Media & Entertainment (M&E), Sports, Advertising, Homeland Security (HLS) and Enterprise, as well as in the Smart Devices market and other B2C implementations.

STEM NOLA offers learning opportunities, activities, programs, and events. Their programs include school-time and out-of-school programs, community-based groups, parent organizations, and businesses.

Aescape is a technology company that builds data-driven massage therapy and wellness experiences. They provide a holistic approach to physical wellness and recovery for everyone, from elite athletes to those just starting out in fitness. It brings together cutting-edge research, a user-friendly interface, and a comprehensive, insights-driven approach to physical wellness and recovery that leaves people feeling great. The company aims to solve this problem and help the industry grow by providing operators with a scalable, dependable solution that supplements the labour shortage and serves as a support tool for massage therapists and athletic trainers.

Zigazoo is a rapidly growing social media brand featuring the recently launched Generation Z-focused Zigazoo app and Zigazoo Kids, which launched in 2020 and has since become the world’s largest social network for Generation Alpha.  Zigazoo makes screentime healthier, safer and more creative.  The video-first apps have empowered millions to express their authentic selves within a positive social media environment and has become a priority destination for top tier creator talent, celebrities, and best-in-class brands including the NBA, Warner Brothers, Paramount Pictures, Amazon, Apple TV+, Netflix, and WWE. Since launch in 2020, Zigazoo has been backed by the NBA, Liberty City Ventures, MaC Venture Capital, Causeway Media Partners, Serena Ventures, Talis Capital, Wheelhouse Entertainment, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Charli & Dixie D’Amelio, and Jimmy Kimmel, and many more tech and entertainment heavyweights.

Nextiles builds a smart apparel platform that helps people exercise better, more safely, and more efficiently. The company pairs athletic apparel with an analytics system that identifies new insights about a persons movement. The company weaves and threads electrically conductive fibers to develop new types of wearable circuitry, through a repurposed sewing technology. The company has an expertise in electrical engineering and circuit design, giving the unique ability to merge fabrics and hardware to engineer new wearable platforms. Nextiles was founded on 2019 and is headquartered in New York, New York.

youthForce NOLA is an education, business, and civic collaborative that prepares New Orleans public school students for successful pursuit of high-wage, high-demand career pathways and facilitates systems change to ensure equitable outcomes.

HyperIce is a recovery and movement enhancement technology company specializing in vibration, percussion, and thermal technology. Its technology is used by the athletes in professional and collegiate training rooms and fitness facilities globally. The company is driven by a mission to provide everyone with the innovative technology in accelerating recovery time, preventing injury, and enhancing the body’s ability to move efficiently.

Fnatic is a global esports entertainment brand focused on seeking out, leveling up, and amplifying gamers and creators. Founded by Sam and Anne Mathews in 2004 in the early days of the professional video gaming industry, Fnatic has since helped shape the new world sport into a fast-growing phenomenon. Today, driven by its ability to advance esports performance, Fnatic is the channel through which the most forward-thinking brands communicate with young people. It delivers content, experiences, and activations through offices and facilities in cities between Los Angeles and Tokyo.

The National Basketball Association is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America, and is widely considered to be the premier men's professional basketball league in the world. The NBA is a global sports and media business built around three professional sports leagues: the National Basketball Association, the Women’s National Basketball Association and the NBA G League.  The league has established a major international presence with games and programming in 215 countries and territories in 49 languages, and NBA merchandise for sale in more than 125,000 stores in 100 countries on 6 continents. NBA rosters at the start of the 2016-17 season featured a record 113 international players from 41 countries and territories. NBA Digital’s assets include NBA TV, NBA.com, NBA App and NBA LEAGUE PASS. The NBA has created one of the largest social media communities in the world, with more than 1.3 billion likes and followers globally across all league, team, and player platforms. Through NBA Cares, the league addresses important social issues by working with internationally recognized youth-serving organizations that support education, youth and family development, and health-related causes.

<div>  <p>    The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America with 30 teams (29 in the US and one in Canada). As of October 2023, the NBA was the     <a href="https://www.sportspromedia.com/insights/analysis/nba-tv-rights-revenue-global-popularity-data-ampere-analysis/?zephr_sso_ott=g5He5v">      second-largest    </a>     sports competition by media rights value in the US (USD 2.7 billion per season).&nbsp; Formed in 1946, the organization is centered around five professional sports leagues: The NBA, WNBA, NBA G League, NBA 2K League, and Basketball Africa League. The NBA is also an active member of USA Basketball (USAB), the national governing organization for basketball in the US.&nbsp;  </p>  <p>        The NBA's primary     <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/071415/how-nba-makes-money.asp">      revenue sources    </a>     are television and broadcast rights, ticketing and merchandise, and esports. The association&rsquo;s current (effective from the 2016&ndash;17 season) nine-year national broadcast rights deal is worth USD 24 billion, generating around USD 2.6 billion annually. The current contract is scheduled to expire after the 2024&ndash;25 season, and the association expects to sign a new nine-year deal worth     <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/22/nba-is-next-up-for-a-big-rights-increase-and-75-billion-is-the-price.html">      USD 75 billion    </a>    , according to media reports. From a sustainability perspective, the NBA seeks to reduce its carbon footprint by 50% (compared to 2019 levels) by 2030, as part of the UN Sport for Climate Action Framework.  </p>  <p>  </p></div>

National Basketball Association

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Monthly News Summary (October 2023)

NBA announces expansion of immersive game broadcasts on Horizon Worlds

Pokémon GO developer, Niantic, launches geolocation AR basketball game, NBA All-World, in partnership with the NBA and NBPA

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