An outsider's perspective on the sports media landscape and Tagboard raises $8m Series A.

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Our newsletter this week features some big fundraising news for our member company Tagboard, as they announce their $8m Series A which is set to supercharge their global expansion. The round was co-led by Grayhawk Capital and Next Frontier Capital with participation from Tagboard clients Sinclair Broadcast Group and Minnesota Vikings owners WISE Ventures. It’s a great sign of belief in a product when your clients back you with investment!

We also have a fantastic podcast episode for you featuring ATP Media’s Chief Strategy Officer and Sports Loft Advisory Board Member Nick Bourne, who treats us to an insightful view of the state of play in sports media.

Elsewhere:

🧙 The eleven skills all Social Managers need according to Slate

🌎 Spalk powering Molson’s campaign to open up hockey to all

🤩 Optimising use of athlete and celeb social channels from Greenfly

🛒Fevo on their CostCo collab

All this and more below!

Sports Loft Podcast

“We’re in a world where you have the short form content of TikTok sat alongside the binge-watching culture of Netflix, with the same audience exhibiting both behaviours… That’s the modern media landscape.”

On this week’s Sports Loft podcast, Yanni chats to Nick Bourne of ATP Media to understand how he is thinking about the ever-changing sports media landscape. Nick tells us how technology can facilitate flexibility to different consumer tastes and why rightsholders need to understand the value that different content forms bring to the table. Drawing on his past experience as commercial lead at sports media disruptor Copa90 and his journey into the world of tennis as an outsider, Nick provides insight into how startups and rightsholders can spot opportunities to tell new stories to sports fans in different ways in a crowded ecosystem. Check it out here.

News from the Sports Loft Companies

The team at Tagboard have been growing rapidly with new product features, more customers and an expanding team! We’ve been working with them for over 12 months and have seen their fantastic journey first-hand. The company has now raised an $8m Series A to further fuel their growth plans. You can read more here and in this blog post from CEO Nathan Peterson.

Our Favourite Top Tweets

We love this! Spalk has powered Molson’s campaign to bring hockey to more fans by facilitating commentary in seven new languages. Check the video here

Fevo have been on the road meeting with clients- see here, and have been hearing some great success stories, such as this from Nashville SC

The Dallas Mavericks have been using their Slate scorecard filter to keep fans updated with the score of the NBA All-Star game, see here

Greenfly enabled athletes to share some huge moments at the winter Olympics, but this was amazing …US athlete Jessie Diggins suffered food poisoning 30 hours before one of the hardest Olympic events and then competed in bitter cold with severe cramping from the food poisoning and yet still took the silver medal. She used Greenfly to share this carousel of images on Instagram, celebrating her achievement.

Recommended Reads & Listens

Fevo’s Betty Tran shares some brilliant insights into the importance of building relationships and what’s next in the ticketing world - listen here from Convos with the Collective

What is a challenger mentality and how can it fuel success in the sports industry? Leaders Live discuss here (shared by Greenfly’s Tom Kuhr)

Geoffrey Moore of Wildcat Ventures talks building gorilla businesses, listen here from Invest Like the Best (shared by Fevo)

Netflix is bringing short form content to the big screen. See TechCrunch

Thought Leadership

Social media managers need to be masters of all trades - writers, designers, customer support you name it. Slate’s Dante Nicholas talks us through the eleven skills needed to succeed in the role here

Following Coinbase’s infamous QR code Superbowl commercial, Tagboard’s Daniel Braun shares some best practice guidance for use of QR codes in broadcasts - see here

Continuing the Superbowl theme - after multiple athlete and celebrity stacked ad spots, Greenfly’s Paula Minardi deep dives into how to optimise social media ads with brand ambassadors year round here

Events

The Tagboard team are back with another episode of #Storyteller. This month, the team speaks with Real Salt Lake’s Tyler Gibbons and discuss fan engagement and developing brand voice. Catch it here!

Fevo Forum is in session! Doug Fowler chats to Oakland A’s Josh Zigenbusch and Seattle Mariners’ Liz McCloskey about their use of the Fevo Costco Program. Read here

And do you want to catch the Fevo team in person? Ari and Josh will be speaking at PACnet 22 and Cara and Paige will be leading sessions at the National Sports Forum

Join The Sports Loft Talent Network

You can search 63 current openings across our members on the Sports Loft Jobs Board. You can also join other leading execs who have registered to join the Sports Loft talent network, so you too can be found by the Sports Loft companies who are hiring.

Sports Loft are hiring for a Head of Content.

Tagboard are hiring for a Product Manager

Greenfly are hiring for a Enterprise Sales Development Representative

Satisfi are hiring for a Client Success Manager.

Slate are hiring for a Cust o mer Success Manager

Fevo are hiring for a Senior Product Manager

Join our talent network

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