Substance over sizzle. I make no promises about the cadence of this email. I do promise it will be worth your time and mine. -Dave
Sports has a Gen Z problem. The pandemic accelerated it.
Does this WaPo article frighten NFL c-suites? It should. More troubling is the triangulation of increasing childhood obesity (up 4x since 1980), social media use (50% increase in depressive symptoms among girls), and waning participation in youth sports (link)? If you own an NFL franchise, throw your political and financial muscle behind this confluence of issues before your son in-law is offloading the team to settle estate tax bills.
Swing hard for…Grandpa?
She’s 7 years old, wears a batting helmet that all but renders her blind, and swings violently at anything within 10 feet of the strike zone. It’s 8:30am on Field 4 at Anytown U.S.A. ballpark and Nora Thompson steps into the batters box, her forthcoming at-bat streamed via a multitude of VC-backed services pining for the attention of residents of Boca Raton retirement communities already 90 minutes into their day. Why? For parents, there’s the hope that Grandpa figures out how to access the web browser, or (gasp!) native application on his iPhone. Is that it?
BETTOR CAPITAL CLOSES FIRST FUND WITH OVER $50M FOR GAMING TECH
Bettor Capital, the venture firm launched last year by gambling executive Dave VanEgmond, has closed its first fund, more than $50 million that will focus on real-money online gaming applications: everything from sports betting, horse racing and fantasy to online casino games, poker and lotteries. (link to Sportico)
With GenZ and other growing segments of the market tying spending propensities to social causes (Forbes), will Bettor Capital borrow from The D10’s playbook and presciently back companies triangulating sports, philanthropy, and betting?
Peyton and Eli Manning Can’t Save the NFL (The Atlantic)
According to a recent report from Sportico, the median viewer age for NBC’s Sunday Night Football is just over 53 years old. The devaluing of NFL franchises will happen with a velocity few bother to state publicly and fewer wish to even consider.
Make Me Smarter, Dave
If you’re not reading David Epstein’s weekly newsletter, start now. (link)
Monitoring Blood Sugar is the new HRV
GraphWear raised a $20.5M Series B for its glucose monitoring wearable. When should we start shorting PEP? Asking for my robo-advisor…
And Now, Your Moment of Taxpayer Zen
Ongo announced a $3.5M seed round for its no-code app development for the Wellness Creator economy (link). Ongo’s raise further supports a popular thesis driving venture capital investing, namely the proliferation of no-code/low-code services (TechCrunch). The VC market is responding in a big way. Low-Code/No-Code vendors have raised $2.3B during the first three quarters of 2021, more than doubling the total investments they received in 2020 ($1.1B). (link)
No place are these services more needed than in the public sector. So, can anyone guess how the DoD responded to this obvious evolution in software development? The U.S. Army proudly stood up the Army Software Factory in 2021 to teach soldiers how to code (link).
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