Sportstech M&A in 2027: What Acquirers Actually Pay For

Sportstech companies now do most of the buying in their own industry. In 2025, 87% of the acquisitions in the SportsTechX dataset were made by sportstech companies, up from 47% in 2020, according to its Global SportsTech Ecosystem Report 2026, powered by PEAK. That shift is reshaping sportstech M&A in 2027. It changes who buys startups, what they pay for, and what founders need to have ready.

Mohit Pareek, Partner at Drake Star, closed his PEAK session with a line he says he always uses. Companies, he said, “are always bought. They’re never sold.” This article combines his buyer checklist with the latest deal data.

What is sportstech M&A?

Sportstech M&A is the buying, selling, and merging of companies that build technology for sport. That covers software and data platforms, streaming, performance tools, and fan engagement products. Two overlapping forces are driving it in 2027:

• Sportstech platforms: companies such as Catapult buy adjacent capabilities instead of building them. SportsTechX also names Teamworks, Hudl, and Sportradar as stack builders.
• Private equity-backed platforms: Genstar and GTCR are backing consolidation in youth sports software and streaming. A platform can be both at once.

Greg Bedrosian, CEO and Managing Partner of Drake Star, told the PEAK main stage that sportstech is “really fragmented,” with few companies at billion-dollar scale. He called that “likely good news” for founders, because “there’s a lot of runway and growth.”

The numbers behind sportstech M&A in 2027

Why two trackers tell different stories

Quote one M&A total and you can be off by more than 50 times. Drake Star counted $156.0B of disclosed M&A value across 450 announced deals in 2025, up 117% on 2024. SportsTechX counted $2.9B, down from $6.7B in 2024.

The difference largely reflects what each tracker includes. Drake Star’s 2025 report covers the wider sports tech and media market. Its top-deals table lists the proposed $82.7B Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery Streaming & Studios transaction and the $55B Electronic Arts acquisition. If both sit inside the $156.0B total, as the table heading suggests, together they make up roughly 88% of it. SportsTechX tracks a narrower set of sportstech companies, and one $1.6B acquisition made up more than half of its 2025 value. The figures are not directly comparable.

The trends are more useful than the totals. In Drake Star’s data, the number of M&A deals rose 39% from 324 in 2023 to 450 in 2025, with 2025 about 1% below 2024. In SportsTechX’s data, more of the buying came from sportstech companies themselves. Together, they suggest deal counts holding up while the buyers change.

Pareek pointed to the same mid-market activity on stage. He described “a large number of deals that are taking place in the smaller to middle market space.”

What acquirers look for when valuing sportstech companies

Pareek’s valuation lens starts with one question: what gets rewarded? His answer was “predictable recurring revenue,” followed by client retention and limited customer concentration. The rest of his checklist builds from there:

• Multi-sport and geographic reach. Businesses focused on one sport often struggle to grow beyond it. Multi-sport, geographically diversified companies earn a “bigger and better valuation,” he said.
• Documented contracts and IP. “The buyer would always look at these contracts with a much more critical lens,” Pareek said. That includes IP, customer and vendor contracts, and compliance.
• Revenue a buyer can read. Messy revenue makes it hard to separate product from services, and recurring from one-off. That friction affects the price.
• A business that stands without its founder. Founder-dependent operations are a risk. Buyers want an institution that can survive the founder’s exit.
• Proprietary technology and first-party data. Pareek called first-party data collection through proprietary tech “a massive narrative.” He said buyers also ask whether a company is AI ready.
• Growth balanced with margin. He called the rule of 40 a common yardstick for SaaS. Early-stage companies can prioritize growth. At scale, margin matters more.

Case study: how buyers are assembling platforms

SportsTechX says the goal behind this buying is to “become the single vendor a club or league can’t live without.” Three recent deals show how it works.

Catapult: buying capabilities instead of building them

Catapult spent 2025 on acquisitions. In June, it bought athlete-monitoring platform Perch for about US$18 million. In October, it announced a deal for IMPECT, a German soccer scouting platform, for up to €78 million (US$91 million).

CEO Will Lopes said the combination is “significant progress” toward becoming the global platform for professional sports teams. Catapult says more than 4,600 teams already use its products, so each acquisition adds something to sell into that base.

Stack Sports and PlayMetrics: a private equity roll-up in youth sports

In June 2025, PlayMetrics and Stack Sports merged, with Genstar Capital as majority owner. PlayMetrics serves more than 2,700 youth sports organizations. Stack Sports serves more than 50 million users in 35 countries. Financial terms were not disclosed.

PlayMetrics CEO Mike Doernberg said sports organizations increasingly want “a single, cohesive platform.” He now leads the combined company.

The logic echoes PEAK’s youth sports technology coverage. TeamSnap CEO Pete Frintzilas said only a few companies reach the scale to make the unit economics work.

Ascent Sports Group and LiveBarn: a new platform around a streaming asset

Private equity firm GTCR formed Ascent Sports Group in January 2026 to invest in the fragmented youth and amateur sports market. Its first deal was LiveBarn, a youth sports streaming platform. The acquisition closed on March 24, 2026, and Sportico valued the sale at roughly $400 million. Terms were not officially disclosed.

The same pattern shows up in sponsorship and fan data. WSC Sports bought Partnerbrite, and Genius Sports bought Sports Innovation Lab, as covered in PEAK’s sports sponsorship ROI analysis.

Why private equity matters to sportstech M&A

Private equity is not only buying sportstech companies. It is also reshaping the teams and leagues those companies sell to. SportsTechX argues that private equity did not change sports; access did. As more professional leagues opened ownership to institutional investors, private equity became an increasingly influential force across the industry. The report names Arctos, RedBird, and CVC as firms that now define the playbook.

This is our analysis rather than a finding from the report, but it points to two consequences for sportstech founders. Owners with institutional capital may expect measurable returns from the software they buy. And private equity is also willing to back the platforms around teams, as the Genstar and GTCR deals show.

SportsTechX also flags a tension. Financial returns can pull against long-term fan identity, and it says the strain is starting to show. Founders selling into this market should expect buyers to ask how a product serves both goals.

What to watch in 2027

Three signals from the data point to where deals may come next:

• New leagues create demand. SportsTechX identifies the proposed NBA Europe competition as a potential catalyst. It reports a 16-team league targeting an October 2027 launch, with franchise fees expected at $500 million to $1 billion. If it launches, ticketing, data, and fan platforms would all need to be built.
• Capital is waiting. Drake Star counted more than $12 billion in new funds raised in 2025 for sports acquisitions and investments. Its report names a $5 billion permanent strategic sports vehicle from Apollo as the largest announced private equity fund.
• Europe is rising. This one concerns funding, not M&A: Europe took 51% of 2025 sportstech funding, overtaking North America for the first time, per SportsTechX.

How to get a sportstech company ready for a sale

Pareek’s central point is that readiness is not the same as selling. “M&A readiness does not mean you have to sell,” he said. It makes a company easier to finance, easier to diligence, and “harder to ignore.” He recommended five steps:

• Start 12 to 24 months out. Preparing for an exit is “a process that takes anywhere from 12 to 24 months,” depending on scale, reach, and product.
• Run a mock diligence process. Ask what a buyer would like to see and what they would not, then fix the gaps.
• Tidy the basics. Reporting, contracts, customer mix, and operating discipline all get scrutiny, including revenue per employee.
• Say what you bring. “Do not make the buyer invent your strategic value,” Pareek said. Name the problem you solve for a larger player.
• Enter with leverage and runway. Go into a process, he said, “where you are not chasing people and people are chasing you.”

Common mistakes to avoid

• Quoting one tracker’s headline without checking its scope. A $156B total and a $2.9B total can both be accurate for what they count.
• Waiting for an inbound offer to start preparing. Readiness takes time, and leverage disappears once a company is short on runway.
• Treating a sale as the only exit. Pareek described two paths, “built to last” and “built to sell.” Category owners with strong recurring revenue can keep expanding independently.
• Leaving the paperwork for later. Contracts, IP documentation, and compliance are where buyers look hardest.

Frequently asked questions about sportstech M&A

What is sportstech M&A?

Sportstech M&A is the buying, selling, and merging of companies that build technology for sport. It includes software, data, streaming, performance, and fan engagement businesses.

How much was the sportstech M&A market worth in 2025?

It depends on the tracker. Drake Star counted $156.0B of disclosed M&A value across 450 deals in 2025. SportsTechX counted $2.9B across a narrower set of sportstech companies.

Who is buying sportstech companies?

Mostly other sportstech companies and private equity-backed platforms. SportsTechX found 87% of the 2025 acquisitions in its dataset were made by sportstech companies, up from 47% in 2020.

What do acquirers look for in a sportstech company?

According to Drake Star’s Mohit Pareek, buyers reward predictable recurring revenue, client retention, limited customer concentration, multi-sport and geographic diversification, and documented IP, contracts, and compliance.

What affects the valuation of a sportstech company?

According to Pareek, valuation is helped by predictable recurring revenue, strong client retention, limited customer concentration, multi-sport and geographic reach, proprietary technology and first-party data, clean contracts and IP, and a balance of growth and margin. Founder dependence is a risk.

How long does it take to prepare a sportstech company for sale?

Pareek said it typically takes 12 to 24 months, depending on a company’s scale, reach, and product.

Why do sportstech M&A figures differ between reports?

Trackers define the sector differently. Drake Star covers the wider sports tech and media market, including mega-deals such as Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery Streaming & Studios and Electronic Arts. SportsTechX tracks a narrower set of sportstech companies. The figures are not directly comparable.

Why this is a Business Strategy conversation

These questions sit within PEAK 2027’s Business Strategy track: who is buying, what they pay for, and how founders and sports organizations prepare. They also connect to the rest of PEAK’s coverage. Consolidation in youth sports technology and the buying behind sponsorship measurement are the same story seen from different tracks.

For the fuller data picture across the industry, see PEAK’s SportsTech Report.