Today, digital world maker Stadium Live Studios Inc. announced a $10 million Series A funding round to continue its mission of bringing fantasy sports to a younger generation. The Canadian startup was founded in 2020 by Kevin Kim and Paul Shu to play the game of sports fans and build a “digital playground” for Gen Z sports fans.
Its main product, Stadium Live, is a sports community platform that allows users – aged 12 and over – to customize their avatar and buy digital collections, earn XP points by setting up teams in live matches and sports streams. Team up with friends, join daily live streams, polls, trivia and chat with like-minded players. Stadium Live has garnered over 500,000 users so far.
The funding is led by KB Partners and Union Square Ventures. Professional basketball player Kevin Durant’s 35 Ventures participated in the round along with French soccer player Blaise Matudi’s Origins Fund, Dapper Labs Ventures, Position Ventures, Valhalla Ventures, 6th Person Ventures, Alumni Ventures and Breakout Capital.
The funding is a significant extension of its $3 million seed round in January 2021, bringing the company’s total funding to around $32 million.
As traditional sports viewership declines among Gen Z, social media and streaming platforms are becoming popular destinations for young sports fans.
“The sports industry has been very slow to adapt to the new generation of fans,” co-founder and CEO Kevin Kim told TechCrunch.
As for the new funding, the stadium plans to hire engineering and production resources to keep live streaming and roll out additional features to help generate revenue. And so will the Android release, which is slated for October or November 2022. The Stadium Live app is currently only available on iOS devices.
A social feature in the works is called “Clubs” that allow users to create small communities.
“You can create classes together about a topic you’re interested in and have club owners who can throw questions or trivia or threads,” Kim explained. “So there are sub-communities within our community.”
Stadium Live has a “room” feature that is currently in beta and allows fans to create a special room with avatar items. Some items are interactive, such as a speaker that plays music. There are also embedded Tik Tok videos, sports highlights and more. Kim told TechCrunch that the company plans to allow users to create resources in the room, such as hosting their own events, trivia, and viewing parties. “Parts” will be officially released sometime in October.
Image Credits: Stadium live broadcast
The company wants to expand to more leagues and other verticals. “We want to connect the next generation of fans with different brands, leagues and properties,” Kim added.
Stadium Live recently partnered with Fan Controlled Football (FCF), an alternative football league where fans vote for their team on real-time decisions. The sports platform wants to play a key role in enhancing the ways the league can connect with its Gen Z fans digitally. The app now streams live FCF matches, poses quizzes for fans and has a league section decorated with FCF paraphernalia such as jerseys and trophies.
Image Credits: Stadium live broadcast
After testing the app, TechCrunch found that chat users were competing with each other on how much they would “grind” for XP, and what level they were in the game from Draft and Rookie. Sophomore, Role Player, All-Star, Superstar, MVP (Most Valuable Player), Legend and Goat (Greatest of All Time).
Players can have “Squads” that are ranked by XP each week in the top 10 list. This week “Immortal” is the top team with 596.54K XP. The maximum number of members for each group is 30.
We found that the app is not only about sports, but also about community of all interests – still the main focus. Live broadcasts range from video game sesh to “suit battles” (costume contests) and more.
“Sports for Gen Z is more than just sports, it’s culture, music, fashion and more. Our focus is on building tools to enable people to connect with each other in the Metaverse. We are building more than the environment; We are building a community,” Kim said.
He noted that the forum is geared toward teens ages 12 and up, so there are about 30 moderators in the app and on Discord.
Last NBA season, Stadium Live grew an average of 30% per month for the season from October 2021 to April 2022. Active users spend 35 minutes a day on the app, if that’s part of the game, watching streams. or meeting with friends.
