Apple is reportedly planning to release a watch geared toward extreme sports athletes.

The rugged version of its Apple Watch Series 8 will have the smartwatch’s largest display yet with 7% more screen area at 2 inches diagonal, a bigger battery, a metal casing, and a more shatter-resistant screen.

• The standard watches are made out of aluminum.
• The extra battery will allow athletes to track workouts for longer periods of time.

The standard Series 8 and the extreme sports Series 8 will both be able to take a user’s body temperature and improve tracking measurements like elevation. The standard Apple Watch currently starts at $699.

The extreme sports wearable will reportedly be announced later this year, along with a standard model and an update to the Apple Watch SE. New watches are usually announced with other Apple products in September.

The global smartwatch market is expected to exceed $97.52 billion by 2028.

Wearables for the Win

In the three months ending March 26, 2022, Apple’s Wearables, Home, and Accessories division accounted for $8.8 billion in revenue, up from the $7.8 billion it recorded during the same period the year prior. The company does not disclose a separate wearables figure.

The company recorded $97.3 billion in total net sales for its fiscal second quarter, an increase from $89.6 billion in 2021.

Amazon Prime Day begins on July 12, and the company is using some of its new Prime sports offerings to promote its day of deals.

Amazon is selling a number of TVs at up to 45% off as part of its pre-Prime Day promotion so “fans can upgrade their living rooms to an optimized ‘Thursday Night Football’ watching experience.”

• Amazon became the first tech company with exclusive rights to an NFL package after striking a deal for the NFL’s “Thursday Night Football” at $1 billion per season. 
• Beginning in September, the show will be led by Al Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit.

There will also be discounts for Amazon’s NFL fan shop and its Fire TV streaming products.

Ultimate Crown, which will see MrBeast’s and Ninja’s teams compete in League of Legends for a $150,000 prize, will stream on Prime Video and Amazon-owned Twitch beginning July 9. Prime members will be able to attend or participate in exclusive chats.

Streaming Shift

Casey Wasserman told CNBC earlier this week that sports rights’ shift toward streaming services is “the future of media,” and will not “drive more cord-cutting, but it’s certainly going to drive more revenues for sports leagues.”

He believes that rights to NFL Sunday Ticket will go to a tech company — the league reportedly wants more than $2 billion for the rights and a stake in NFL media.

Major League Soccer has secured a deal with IMG Arena following an arduous request-for-approval process. 

IMG Arena — a service that works with more than 470 sportsbook brands — will work with MLS to increase fan engagement for America’s top soccer league and its new affiliate league, MLS NEXT Pro. The two entities will also work together to “create a new standard” for soccer data. 

• The deal is worth more than $270 million, per Sportico.
• As part of the pact, MLS will launch three new live data feeds.
• The two entities will also launch digital products to engage online audiences.

IMG Arena’s deal with MLS comes at an exciting time for the league. 

Last month, Apple agreed to a deal with MLS to exclusively stream every match for 10 years starting in 2023. The media rights deal is worth at least $2.5 billion, a source confirmed to Front Office Sports. It will also see MLS receive a base fee and percentage of subscription sales. 

MLS and Apple will build a production studio and hire multilingual talent to facilitate the deal. 

New Endeavor 

IMG Arena is a division of Endeavor, one of the largest holding companies in the world for talent, sports, and media agencies. The owner of UFC generated $1.47 billion in revenue in Q1, a 37.8% increase year-over-year, behind the return of capacity crowds at events.

Endeavor projects full-year revenue to range between $5.2 billion and $5.5 billion in FY2022.

Gaming-focused venture capital firm Konvoy Ventures has raised $150 million for Konvoy Fund III.

Around 20% to 30% of the fund, which reportedly puts Konvoy at $250 million in assets under management, will go toward blockchain and crypto-related games. 

Co-founder Josh Chapman said Konvoy will look into making investments based on tokens rather than shares. The firm will also look to fund more traditional gaming firms, including those working on the fashion, education, and healthcare industries.

“One hundred percent exposure to crypto would not be the right strategy for us, but 0% would also be the wrong strategy,” Chapman said.

Konvoy plans to invest in gaming startups at various stages of development.

Since launching four years ago, Konvoy Ventures has invested in 35 companies across North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Southeast Asia.

• Konvoy backed Sky Mavis, the developer of Axie Infinity, which is an NFT-based virtual world.
• The firm has also invested in Sipher, Genopets, and Ready Player Me.

Crypto Crisis

The new fund comes as cryptocurrency continues to draw criticism in the gaming industry. 

A blockchain network used by Axie Infinity was hit by a $620 million hack in March. Earlier this year, Terra’s stablecoin collapsed, making it difficult for users to cash out gaming rewards and for games to stay within the Terra ecosystem.