SBJ Power Up: Genius Sports makes a $1.2B acquisition

I am finally starting to see the ground again after a week-plus of snow coverage here in North Carolina. Hope we all get a good thaw out this weekend.

See you back here on Monday. — Ethan Joyce

In today’s edition of Power Up:

• Genius Sports acquires sports gaming media company Legend
• Sandbox Series: Testing out Shoot 360
• MLB Players Inc. inks licensing deal with AI avatar firm Genies

Genius Sports announced Thursday that it is acquiring the sports and gaming media network Legend in a transaction valued at up to $1.2B. Genius CEO Mark Locke said on an investor call following the announcement that Legend’s platform, data, audience and inventory will be integrated into Genius’ FanHub sports fan activation platform.

“The goal for our media business is to be the buying platform for any advertiser trying to reach a sports audience," Locke said. “This transaction supercharges the drivers of this strategy -- more data, more audience, more inventory and more monetization pathways to deliver returns for our customers.”

The deal, which Genius expects to close in the second quarter of 2026, further expands Genius’ media and advertising business, which it also recently augmented with the acquisition of data firm Sports Innovation Lab last year.

Legend owns media companies such as Covers.com and Casino.org; operates an artificial intelligence-powered fan data platform used by its owned brands and sports betting operators like FanDuel, DraftKings, BetMGM; and syndicates betting content for publishers such as Sports Illustrated and Yahoo! Sports.

Ambitious revenue projections

Locke also highlighted new revenue estimates for Genius in the wake of the deal, headlined by a $1.1B revenue projection ($320M-$330M EBITDA) by the end of 2026 and $1.6B ($550M EBITDA) by the end of 2028. (Genius booked $669M in revenue in 2025.)

The top line $1.2B deal value includes $900M to be paid by Genius at closing -- $800M in cash, $100M in stock consideration -- and a $300M earn-out spread across two years, post-close. Genius is funding the acquisition through an $850M loan.

Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs worked as Genius’ financial advisors on the deal and are providing financing. Macfarlanes and Kirkland & Ellis were Genius’ legal counsel.

Oakvale Capital and The Rain Group were Legend’s financial advisors, while Lathan & Watkins and Herzog Fox & Neeman acted as their legal counsel.

* * * * *

The Sandbox series is where we share our experiences testing products, gear, solutions and more in the sports tech space. Most recently, Joe Lemire envisioned himself at an A’s game in Las Vegas and tried supercharging his recovery with Ammortal.

* * * * *

Larry Bird famously won a three-point contest while still wearing his warmup jacket — after asking in the locker room, “Who’s coming in second?” — so, with the Nets about to play the Celtics, I channeled his confidence and didn’t change out of my hoodie and jeans.

Across the street from Barclays Center, the Nets recently opened the Brooklyn Basketball Training Center where a couple of weeks ago I had been invited to test the Shoot 360 tech its coaches use in training youth players.

Standing in front of one of the baskets outfitted with Noah Basketball’s shot-tracking tech and Shoot 360’s graphical user interface, I awaited the pass, dribbled back across a few lines and confirmed with coach Michael Collins that I was now behind the NBA three-point line. I was. And so I took a shot.

The net swished, and the LED screen lit up green — Shoot 360’s Splash Zone confirmed that my shot’s arc, depth and left-right alignment were just about perfect. Bird would have been proud.

Or at least my fellow ginger sharpshooter, Brian Scalabrine, who looks like family and played for the Celtics and Nets. (My two-time fantasy basketball title team was named Big Scal’s Doppelgängers.)

The Nets have long run free youth basketball programs in the borough, reaching 40,000 kids annually through 235 schools as well as Boys & Girls Clubs and other community centers. But this space now gives them a centralized location to run daily programs, largely targeting children ages 6 to 17. The Shoot 360 tech, Collins noted, offers a range of drills and sills — even passing and dribbling — so kids have a balance of autonomy and structure, so they can “use this technology not only to create a workout, but then also have fun.”

Don’t take just my word for it, but my brother and I brought some of our kids — ages 9, 11 and 14 — to test out the tech. They loved it and didn’t want to leave despite working up a light sweat and pushing close to tip-off an NBA game.

Three stations have responsive, large-screen LEDs that show videos demonstrating technique and then offer interactive exercises. The kids were asked to dribble a certain way and then fire passes at numbered targets. At one point, the screen showed a memory game that also required passing accuracy: players bounced the ball off the card to flip it over.

“One of our main lenses is, how do we help players get better faster?” said Shoot 360 founder/CEO Craig Moody, a former college basketball coach.

The company’s founding story involved Moody seeing his teenage son and his friends prefer to play NBA2K inside rather than go outside and shoot hoops on a sunny day. “If I could build a gym like a video game,” Moody thought to himself, “I’d have it made.”

Just before our family visit, the training center hosted a group of young campers from NBA Brazil, while another international group visited a similar facility operated by the Cleveland Cavaliers. The coaching staffs at the two sites synced up the Shoot 360s at each location and organized a real-time contest — truly the video game ideal Moody had long envisioned.

Marissa Shorenstein, Chief External Affairs Officer at Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment, said there’s a dual purpose to the franchise’s investment.

“We do it because we believe in giving back to the community, but we also do it because we know that engaging youth is the best way to engage long-term fandom for the Brooklyn Nets and the New York Liberty,” she said, noting that the Knicks, for example, have decades of inherited fandom whereas the Nets have only been in Brooklyn for 13 years and the Liberty for half that time. “For us, really creating that connective tissue with the community through the youth is what we believe is going to differentiate us long-term to build that generational growth.”

But there’s an appeal for adults, too. Collins said Nets players periodically pop in and shoot on the tech-enabled baskets. Jamal Crawford, Thad Young, Trae Young, Sue Bird and Breanna Stewart are among the former NBA and WNBA players to invest in Shoot 360. And weekend warrior adults (like me) had fun taking shots and getting feedback. It’s akin to what TopGolf, Home Run Dugout and other sport-tainment venues are offering.

“Where you have just the shooting piece, you don’t have to run up and play defense. You’re getting all the competition, you’re getting the social [element],” Moody said, adding, “We want people to play around the world for a lifetime.”

MLB Players Inc., the business arm of the MLB Players Association, has signed a group licensing deal with artificial intelligence-powered digital avatar creator Genies. Through the deal, for which terms were not disclosed, the two sides will create AI avatars of MLB players with whom fans can interact. A spokesperson for Genies told SBJ the deal allows Genies to generate avatars for every player in MLB and that their “target and expectation” is to do so.

California-based Genies was founded in 2017 and has raised $200M to date, including a $150M Series C in 2022 led by Silver Lake that valued the company at $1B. Outgoing Disney CEO Bob Iger; venture capital firms Bond and New Enterprise Associates; the talent agency CAA; and former NFLer Ndamukong Suh are other previous investors. (Bond General Partner Mary Meeker and NEA Partner Rick Yang also sit on the company’s board.)

Genies’ technology -- used in the past by the NFLPA and NBPA in addition to the MLBPA -- creates digital avatars of human likenesses that are powered by large language models. MLB Players Inc. President Evan Kaplan said in prepared remarks that the initiative, “is a key part of our broader strategy to connect with fans worldwide through innovative digital experiences that honor player authenticity while creating new opportunities for engagement.”

• Sources: Warriors’ Lacob has genuine interest in buying Padres
• ATP Chairman Andrea Gaudenzi re-elected through 2028
• RAJ Sports’ dual WNBA-NWSL women’s sports training facility lands naming-rights partner
• Rays release renderings of proposed ballpark project in Tampa
• Arctos aiming to scale and globalize sports investment business after being acquired by KKR
• Starbucks signs as title partner of Winter House

• The New York Times: Amazon’s $200 Billion Spending Plan Raises Stakes in A.I. Race
• TechCrunch: Elon Musk is getting serious about orbital data centers
• The Wall Street Journal: Google Leans Hard Into Its AI-Winner Status