Sporticast: The Future of Sports Could Come From This $60 Million Fund
On the latest Sporticast episode, hosts Scott Soshnick and Eben Novy-Williams speak with Meredith McPherron, CEO of Drive By DraftKings, about the fund’s new high-profile investors, its target industries and how it sees the future of sports, tech and entertainment.
Drive By DraftKings announced earlier this week that it had raised $60 million from a group of powerful sports team owners and investors. That includes Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, New England Patriots owner Bob Kraft, Los Angeles Dodgers co-owner Todd Boehly and the Dolan family-controlled Madison Square Garden businesses. It also announced an advisory board of well-known figures, including NFL wideout Larry Fitzgerald and longtime MLB team executive Theo Epstein.
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McPherron discusses the fundraising process, and the advantages of working with this group moving forward. She also talks about the fund’s investment thesis, which revolves around companies at a variety of stages that are focused in four main areas: 1) sports and gaming, 2) media and fan engagement, 3) human performance, and 4) data analytics and monetization. “That’s a pretty broad mandate,” she says, “with a very large market size.”
The group also discusses the oft-referenced “Metaverse,” another area of interest for Drive By DraftKings. The metaverse is already here in some ways, McPherron says, and the fund is already looking for ways to deploy money with start-ups that are thinking about how sports and entertainment will adapt to that future.
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