The creator industry has clinched another multimillion-dollar sports deal.
Livestreaming startup Playback wants to be “Twitch for sports,” and it just raised $22 million from investors like Alexis Ohanian‘s Seven Seven Six to make that happen.
As we’ve been tracking over the past year or so, sports are having a real moment on platforms like YouTube. Or, well, ‘a moment’ may be the wrong terminology, because we don’t think this phenomenon is likely to be brief. Sports have been a domineering force in human entertainment for as long as entertainment has existed; what’s changed now, thanks in part to things like NIL restrictions ending and the legalization of sports betting (with DraftKings, FanDuel, and more pouring millions into creator-led advertising), younger generations are taking their sports fandom online.
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Sports leagues are recognizing their power. The PGA Tour has begun holding Creator Classic tournaments, the NBA and NFL have increasingly tapped creators for partnerships, and Formula 1 is counting on viewership from a digital-first Gen Z audience to fuel its future growth.
But there is one roadblock sports creators face on most platforms: copyright strikes for using official game footage. YouTube has a deal with the NFL that lets content creators use archived game footage legally–but with other leagues, and on other platforms, creators can struggle.
Playback, which was founded in 2023, aims to help livestreamers get over this roadblock. Just like Twitch, it allows streamers to broadcast content to live audiences, who can respond with text chats–but unlike Twitch, its platform is specifically sports-focused. And it knows streamers are often blocked from broadcasting any official matches.
Playback previously secured a deal with the NBA’s League Pass streaming service that would let creators stream full NBA and WNBA games to their audiences without worrying about copyright issues.
With this new round of investment, it’s also announcing a partnership with Major League Baseball, where creators can stream games from MLB.tv.
(There is a catch to both these deals: audience members will need their own subscriptions to League Pass and/or MLB.tv to see content broadcasted on Playback. That means any viewer can see the creator’s camera and commentary on Playback for free, but to see the actual content the creator is sharing, an independent subscription is required.)
RJ Halperin, Playback’s co-founder and CEO, told Business Insider he founded the platform because younger generations aren’t watching live sports as much as past generations did.
“Sports is best as a content category when you actually get to feel the community and the social activity that lives around it,” he said. “Sports thrive off the social energy.”
And interactive social energy abounds on digital platforms. Now it’s just whether Playback can build itself big enough. It doesn’t release user numbers, but we do know it’s backed by NBA Investments and that several NBA players have joined as users, including Kevin Garnett, Gilbert Arenas, and Jeff Teague.
The $22 million raise also included Khosla Ventures.
Over the next few months, Playback is looking at adding revenue and monetization features, including advertisements and sponsorship opportunities, BI reports. It also wants to onboard more leagues for official content deals, so creators can legally broadcast a diverse range of sports to their viewers. Halperin said it feels like a “race against time” to seal agreements with different leagues.
“We want to move as quickly as possible to try to build a bigger and bigger library of apps on our platform that allow fans to watch as much content as they want,” he said.
