Geek Locker Roundup #39
June 27th, 2025
Geek Locker
Welcome back to the Geek Locker Roundup— your bi-weekly collection of the latest sports innovation news, product releases, and design resources!
Last week, we dove into one of my current hobbies in trail running, and one of my current frustrations with rising race and event fees. In general, race fees across most endurance sports have been outpacing broader inflation trends, and it will be fascinating to see what opportunities this opens up for new race formats and features in the near future. The demographics of endurance sports seem to continue skewing towards higher-income athletes, which makes it possible for race organizers to keep increasing race features, costs, and prices. In the long run, I do wonder if this trajectory will be unsustainable, and a whole new tranche of low-cost, low-frill endurance and race event will emerge as a popular local draw!
Recess #13: Less is Less is More?
Two Saturdays ago, I spent about a quarter of my waking hours fighting as fast as I could through the rain, mud, deep puddles, and slick rocks up around Chocorua Mountain in New Hampshire. A lot of things kept me moving towards the finish line: I was having fun, I wanted to finish in under four hours, and on top of it all, I paid to be there. More speci…
Next week, we will be tackling the aforementioned topic of how state income taxes and cost of living more broadly affect professional sports teams’ ability to actual recruit top talent and win regularly. I have been getting hit harder by jet lag while traveling than expected which has slowed down the drafting pace, but once I am back from travel we’ll return to the regularly-scheduled programming! In the meantime, enjoy the most recent sports tech news (in brief). At some point in the future, I will hopefully be getting ahead on article drafting to get a queue set up for future disruptions!
As always, I appreciate your engagement and please share with others who might be interested in reading about sports innovation. On to the news in very brief while I’m traveling!
Company Cable
Updates about major sports tech company transactions.
Liberty Media has acquired Dorna Sports and MotoGP as a result, for a $4.3B sum. This seems like a high sum for a less popular version of F1, but maybe the sport can take off and go mainstream!
Pro Athlete Community, Inc. has raised $7.6M in a Series A funding round to help educate pro athletes. Most pro sports careers end before 30, so it’s great to see a company aiming to help the athletes transition into a new career and help with finance management.
Automated highlight and scorekeeping software startup SportsVisio has raised $3.2M, including contributions from Sony's Innovation Fund. The Sony Innovation Fund is a great pickup for the team as they look to gain an initial foothold in the market.
Sports team and league management software platform Teamworks has raised $235M in a blockbuster funding round. The company is now valued at over $1B, and looking to expand rapidly across all levels of sport.
Indoor sports venue startup Ballers has raised a $20M Series A from a star-studded pro athlete cast. Ballers will open their first sports venue with pickleball courts, gold simulators, turf fields, and more in Philadelphia at a to-be-determined future date.
Startup Machaxi has raised $1.5M to expand its AI badminton coaching and facilities business. This could either be a great beachhead market for the broader paddle sports market, or too niche to serve as the foundation for a high-growth startup company.
Martin St. Louis' Seven7 is acquiring a stake in hockey gear company CCM in their latest company sale. I’ve written previously about how the hockey gear market is a difficult one to see exploding, but perhaps it can be a long-term sustainable growth business.
PE Fund Centroid Investment Partners has acquired golf equipment company TaylorMade to expand their sports holdings. I remember when TaylorMade used to be owned by Adidas!
New Releases
New sports products and major features that are hitting the market.
Polar is set to release their new screen-less (and subscription-less) WHOOP competitor to the general public this fall. I have to imagine that others will follow suit in the years to come and I’m concerned that WHOOP may end up struggling to stay afloat due to their business model.
Garmin has released two new products in a mountain-bike-specific GPS computer and a standalone sleep tracker. The bike computer has relatively strong reviews, and the sleep tracker also feels like another WHOOP precursor for Garmin.
Suunto has (finally) added track mode and a series of other running features to its watches. The differences between the major running watch brands like Coros, Garmin, and Suunto are so small that it makes selecting a hardware product mainly come down to software features.
The NFL and Fanatics collaborated to produce a line of NFL team-themed soccer jerseys that vary widely in quality. Some look incredible, and others look very mediocre, but if you’re an NFL fan looking for something unique, it could be a good pick up!
If you're looking for an off-season deal on an avalanche beacon, it might be worth reading about the newly-updated (post-recall) Mammut Barryvox S2. The overall Mammut brand feels poised for a popularity explosion in North America, and perhaps their avalanche safety gear will be their beachhead.
Black Diamond has launched a new lineup of approach shoes that can double as lightweight hikers (and they look awesome). It’s the type of gear that makes me wish I did the associated sport, which is a great compliment.
Some News
Select news stories from across the sports and design world.
The Los Angeles Lakers will reportedly be sold at a record-breaking $10B valuation later this year. With the Celtics’ sale earlier this year and the Timberwolves also being sold with the WNBA’s Lynx for $1.5B, it’s been a busy year for basketball team owners!
ESPN has extended its media deal with Major League Lacrosse (MLL) and taken a stake in the league. It seems like linking media rights deals to ownership stakes in up-and-coming pro sports leagues is becoming the norm, which carries some very interesting upsides and drawbacks…
Gamestop has publicized plans to launch a trading card marketplace both online and in-stores. I honestly don’t know what Gamestop will do next— they are a highly unpredictable company.
FIFA will look to test out a variety of new technology solutions at the Club World Cup, including Semi-Automated Offsides! After the event is over, I want to take a look back to see how well the system performed. FIFA often publishes info about their automation technology performance, so keep your eyes peeled for a report posted online (maybe very quietly).
Grab Bag
Interesting or useful sports innovation and product design resources, ranging from books and websites to individual graphics.
Michael MacKelvie posted a great video about the degradation of draft pick performance in the NBA worth watching. I would love to see a similar draft efficacy breakdown for other leagues as well!
Nike has unveiled a 3D printed "Flyweb" sports bra designed to help Faith Kipyegon break the 4-minute barrier. Unfortunately, Faith didn’t end up hitting her target time yesterday, but I think she and Nike will be back to try again.