Global Sports Leaders To Gather In Baku For The SportAccord Convention

From 24–28 May 2026, the SportAccord Convention will take place in Baku, bringing together leaders from across the international sports community.

The Convention is currently in its Early Bird registration phase, offering preferred registration conditions until 31 January.

SportAccord serves as a global umbrella organisation for Olympic and non-Olympic International Federations, and its annual Convention provides a platform for dialogue, knowledge exchange, and collaboration across the global sports industry. Participants include leaders of international federations, presidents and executive members of the International Olympic and Paralympic Committees, host cities, major event organisers, broadcasters, technology providers, and other key stakeholders.

SportAccord Convention 2026 will be hosted at Baku’s leading venues, including the Baku Convention Center and the Heydar Aliyev Center. As the largest convention centre in the Caucasus, the Baku Convention Center offers a professional setting designed to support high-level discussions, networking, and exhibitions.

The Early Bird registration period remains open until 31 January, allowing participants to benefit from discounted rates.

In addition, partnership and exhibition opportunities are available for organisations and companies seeking to showcase their brands to an influential international audience and build valuable global connections.

In May 2026, the international sports community will come together in Baku to shape the future of sport.

More information and registration: www.sportaccord.sport/2026-conv/

Ferrari Drives Away With Whoop Partnership

Scuderia Ferrari HP has announced a new partnership with WHOOP, which becomes Team Partner and Official Health and Fitness Wearable Partner starting from the 2026 Formula 1 season.

As part of the agreement, WHOOP devices will be made available to members of the team to support the monitoring and understanding of key factors linked to physical health and wellness throughout the season.

The medical team supporting Scuderia Ferrari HP team will work closely with WHOOP’s Performance Science experts on enhancing the physical efficiency and recovery by analyzing data related to sleep, stress and recovery in line with the team’s long-standing, data-driven approach.

Lorenzo Giorgetti, Chief Racing Revenue Officer of Ferrari said: “The partnership with WHOOP allows us to extend our data-driven approach beyond the car, to aspects more related to the human factor, by combining our expertise in high-performance engineering with WHOOP insights into human health. This collaboration represents a further step in our commitment to innovation and continuous improvement, with the objective of creating the best possible conditions for the team, on and off the track.”

A New Era of Multi-Sport Storytelling: ANOC and Spectatr.ai at the Islamic Solidarity Games Riyadh 2025

The Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC), in collaboration with the Islamic Solidarity Sports Association (ISSA), partnered with AI sports technology company Spectatr.ai to deliver real-time, AI-powered highlights at the 6th Islamic Solidarity Games (ISG) Riyadh 2025, marking a significant step forward in how large-scale, multi-sport events are covered and shared digitally. For the Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC) and Islamic Solidarity Sports Association (ISSA), this edition represented a turning point: a chance to dramatically expand the Games’ digital reach, modernise how stories are told, and ensure that every nation and every athlete had a place on the global stage.

Held from 7–21 November 2025, the Games brought together more than 3,500 athletes from 57 National Olympic Committees, competing across 20+ sports. With multiple competitions running simultaneously across venues, ANOC sought a solution that could scale content production, ensure equal athlete visibility, and enable near-instant distribution to global audiences.

Addressing the Challenges of Multi-Sport Coverage

Covering multi-sport events at this scale presents unique challenges. Traditional editorial workflows rely heavily on manual processes, requiring editors to monitor live feeds, identify key moments, clip footage, format content, and distribute it across platforms. At ISG Riyadh 2025, this approach risked delays, limited output, and uneven representation across nations.

To address this, ANOC deployed Spectatr.ai’s AI engine, PULSE, to automate real-time highlight generation across all competitions.

Real-Time Highlights at Scale

Throughout the Games, PULSE continuously monitored live match streams, automatically detecting key sporting moments such as goals, finishes, rallies, podium ceremonies, and emotional athlete reactions. Within seconds, these moments were converted into ready-to-publish video clips enriched with metadata, including athlete names, nations, sport, and contextual tags, and automatically formatted for both 16:9 and 9:16 distribution.

All clips were branded with ISG Riyadh 2025 intros and graphics, ensuring visual consistency across platforms and reducing manual editing requirements for broadcasters and NOCs.

The content was delivered directly to ANOC, ISSA, and their Digital Content Hub, supporting the NOC digital teams. For the first time at this scale, every participating NOC, regardless of size—received daily highlights of their athletes, enabling real-time engagement with fans back home.

ANOC leadership saw this as a major leap toward the future of sports coverage. Secretary General Mrs. Gunilla Lindberg highlighted how the partnership reflected ANOC’s commitment to innovation, ensuring that every performance, from the biggest stars to first-time athletes — could be shared immediately with global audiences. Spectatr.ai Co-Founder Richa Singh noted that the collaboration enabled a new style of storytelling that captures not just results, but the emotion, intensity, and human connection that define the Games.

“Our partnership with Spectatr.ai reflects the ISSA’s commitment to adopting artificial intelligence as a core institutional tool,” said ISSA Secretary General Nasser Majali. “By leveraging AI-driven, real-time highlights, we enhanced global visibility for athletes from our 57 member countries and enabled National Olympic Committees to access high-quality video content, helping the Islamic Solidarity Games reach wider audiences worldwide.”

Measurable Digital Impact during ISG Riyadh 2025

  • First-ever daily, NOC-tailored highlight packages: Spectatr.ai delivered every day the best moments from each of the 57 participating National Olympic Committees (512 daily highlights in total), delivering 3–5 minute team-specific highlight packages and published on ANOC.TV. For the first time, fans across all 57 NOCs could access NOC-specific daily highlights, complementing the official sports and Games highlights.

  • Unprecedented scale of real-time content production: The AI-driven workflow generated 50,000+ real-time clips over 15 days, with an average of nearly 500 highlights published daily to the ANOCs digital hub, accessible to all National Olympic Committees (NOCs).
  • Sustained audience growth across official social channels: Content distributed via ANOC.TV, ISSA, and the official ISG Riyadh 2025 social accounts delivered 7.5+ million video views across platforms, with engagement building consistently throughout the duration of the Games.

  • Stronger fan engagement through instant storytelling: With key moments published within seconds of occurring, the content recorded 250,000+ likes, and significant comments and shares, enabling fans to follow competitions in near real time and driving higher reach, deeper engagement, and a stronger emotional connection to the Games.

  • Expanded global reach across participating NOCs: Across the social channels of the NOCs, the real-time clips published and distributed to NOCs through the ANOC Digital Content Hub during the Games achieved 2M+ video views, generated 50K+ comments, and delivered strong cross-market reach.

A Blueprint for the Future of Multi-Sport Events

ANOC leadership viewed the collaboration as a strategic step toward modernising sports coverage at scale. By automating time-intensive editorial tasks, the solution allowed content teams to focus on storytelling rather than manual production, while ensuring fair and inclusive representation across all nations.

The workflows established at ISG Riyadh 2025 now serve as a scalable blueprint for future editions of the Games and other multi-sport events where ANOC could potentially be engaged as a partner, demonstrating how AI can expand both capacity and quality without increasing operational overhead.

As global sports events continue to grow in scale and complexity, the ANOC × Spectatr.ai partnership at ISG Riyadh 2025 illustrates how real-time AI-powered highlights can redefine digital storytelling, ensuring that no moment is missed, no athlete is overlooked, and fans worldwide remain connected as events unfold.

Tennis Australia Reaches Settlement With PTPA In Antitrust Case

The deepening power struggle within professional tennis has come into sharp focus at the start of the season’s first Grand Slam, following the public disclosure of a settlement agreement between Tennis Australia and the Professional Tennis Players’ Association (PTPA).

The PTPA filed an antitrust lawsuit last year against the ATP Tour, WTA Tour, International Tennis Federation (ITF) and the four Grand Slam tournaments, alleging coordinated actions that suppress prize money, restrict player rankings, and limit commercial and promotional freedoms. While Tennis Australia was originally named in the case, it was removed from the claim last month after reaching a confidential settlement with the players’ body.

Court filings published in New York on Saturday have now revealed the contours of that agreement, effectively exposing fractures between Tennis Australia and the sport’s remaining governing institutions. Under the settlement, Tennis Australia has agreed to cooperate with the PTPA in its legal action against the other Grand Slams and governing bodies, including sharing sensitive financial and operational information.

According to the documents, the cooperation includes access to data related to tournament finances, prize money structures, player name, image and likeness (NIL) rights, sponsorship and endorsement opportunities, scheduling requirements, ranking systems, and participation rules. In return, Tennis Australia secured immunity from potential financial damages that could have run into tens of millions.

The timing of the disclosure — on the opening weekend of the Australian Open — has heightened tensions across the sport. A source within the WTA described the move as deliberately provocative, suggesting it could accelerate an already escalating dispute between players and tennis authorities.

The PTPA is seeking structural reform across professional tennis, including higher prize money, greater player input into scheduling decisions, and increased commercial autonomy. In its legal submissions, the players’ union argued that the agreement with Tennis Australia was designed to increase pressure on the remaining defendants to enter settlement discussions.

By reducing the number of organisations exposed to financial liability, the PTPA believes the cooperation from Tennis Australia will strengthen its ability to pursue the case through trial if necessary.

Further inflaming the situation, the PTPA issued a public statement shortly before Novak Djokovic’s pre-tournament press conference in Melbourne. Djokovic, who co-founded the union in 2020 alongside Vasek Pospisil, stepped away from the organisation last month but reiterated his support for its underlying objectives.

In its statement, the PTPA accused tennis’s governing bodies of operating an anticompetitive system that limits player earnings, imposes demanding schedules, restricts sponsorship opportunities, and curbs innovation across the sport. The union said it was fully funded to pursue the lawsuit to its conclusion and framed the dispute as a defining moment for the future structure of professional tennis.

Djokovic later clarified that while he no longer agreed with the PTPA’s leadership direction, he continued to believe in the need for an independent, player-only representative body within tennis.

The ATP and WTA have consistently rejected the lawsuit’s claims, calling them unfounded, and alongside the remaining Grand Slam tournaments are expected to continue defending their governance model. Tournament organisers have pointed to significant recent increases in prize money — including a 16% rise at this year’s Australian Open — and ongoing discussions around formalising player representation within decision-making structures.

As the legal battle unfolds, the Tennis Australia settlement has underscored a growing reality: the governance model of professional tennis is under unprecedented scrutiny, and the balance of power between players and institutions is being actively contested.

London Spirit Inks Partnership With Nike and Barclays

London Spirit, the Lord’s-based franchise in The Hundred owned by Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), and the Tech Titans, has unveiled its new brand identity, including an updated logo and new colours.

London Spirit was taken over by MCC and the Tech Titans, a consortium of US-based leaders in the technology industry, after the 2025 edition of the 100-ball competition. The franchise has also since announced that Barclays will appear on the front of the playing kit as its principal partner, and its kit will be supplied by Nike.

Nikesh Arora, Tech Titan, said: “Since joining forces with MCC as co-owners of London Spirit, I have enjoyed watching the development of the new look and feel of the franchise, and seeing the team coming together. One thing is for sure: we are only just getting started.”

Throughout 2025, London Spirit worked with brand agency VCCP to conduct extensive market research into its brand, including assessing the strength of its name, logo and colours.

MCC had already confirmed that London Spirit would retain its name, recognising the strong connection fans of the franchise have with the existing identity.

The research clearly indicated that Lord’s is the Club’s biggest asset, so the Ground’s presence in the branding has increased. The new logo incorporates London Spirit’s initials to create a simple and striking symbol that enhances the connection to our Ground: a slight incline on the letter ‘L’ alludes to the famous Lord’s slope. We are also pleased to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Father Time weathervane, by using it as a motif in several areas.

A dark blue takes precedence in the new colour scheme which includes a subtle nod to MCC’s distinctive red-and-yellow palette. This has been incorporated by use of a thread that will run through various blue London Spirit merchandise, some of which is already available on the London Spirit website.

London Spirit’s new Principal partner will be British bank Barclays, with whom MCC already has a multi-year partnership as premier sponsor of Lord’s. Barclays has considerable heritage in sponsorship within sport, with successful long-term partnerships in football, tennis and cricket. As principal partner of the franchise, Barclays will feature on the front of the London Spirit playing kit and assorted merchandise.

The partnership builds on Barclays’ sponsorship, alongside the Black Heart Foundation, of the Barclays Knight-Stokes Cup – a national hardball competition for secondary state schools, in which approximately one-fifth of secondary state schools (870) have entered a boys’ or girls’ team for the inaugural competition, to be played in 2026. This agreement with London Spirit underlines Barclays’ commitment to English cricket at all levels, from grassroots to elite performance. It illustrates Barclays’ and MCC’s shared ambition to be at the forefront of innovation – bringing new, younger and more diverse audiences to the game.

Nike, one of the world’s most recognisable sports brands, will supply the kits for London Spirit. Nike, one of the world’s most recognisable brands, will feature on the London Spirit kits through an official partnership with KitKing. This is the first partnership for Nike in The Hundred and it takes place in London, one of its biggest international markets. The kit will be unveiled and available to purchase in the Spring.

The London Spirit franchise has also confirmed the names of eight player signings, four men and four women, the maximum number of players that can be signed before The Hundred auction in March. Three of the signings, Charlie Dean, Grace Harris and Jamie Overton, represented the franchise in 2025.

All eight signings are internationals specialising in the shortest form of the game. They are: Dewald Brevis (South Africa), Charlie Dean (England), Mahika Gaur (England), Grace Harris (Australia), Marizanne Kapp (South Africa), Liam Livingstone (England), Jamie Overton (England) and Adam Zampa (Australia).

London Spirit Men’s Head Coach Andy Flower said: “I’m excited to start working with Dewald and Adam and renewing my working relationships with Liam and Jamie. Each player brings phenomenal experience in franchise cricket both in The Hundred and across the world. Their skill sets provide a strong foundation for the squad and I look forward to completing the squad with more excellent players.”

London Spirit Women’s Head Coach Jon Lewis also added: “It is brilliant to be able to call upon players of such calibre in the women’s game. I am delighted that London Spirit fans will see the return of two favourites in Charlie and Grace and I know Mahika and Marizanne will provide real skill and experience to our bowling attack.”

Volleyball World Appoints Red Tiger Marketing For Global Commercial Growth Strategy

Volleyball World has appointed UK-based Red Tiger Marketing – a firm founded by former Manchester United CEO Richard Arnold – to support its global commercial growth strategy.

The appointment will focus on sponsorship, strategic partnerships and brand-led growth across Volleyball World’s global portfolio.

Red Tiger Marketing will work with Volleyball World’s senior leadership to support commercial planning and partner development, drawing on experience from the UK sports marketing sector at a time when rights holders have increasingly sought specialist agencies to drive international revenues.

Volleyball World will operate as a joint venture between the FIVB and CVC Capital Partners, managing the global commercial rights for elite indoor and beach volleyball competitions. Its platform has reached large international audiences across broadcast, digital and live events, with continued growth in youth engagement and global participation.

The appointment will take place as international federations continue to professionalise commercial operations ahead of major global events, including the build-up to the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games, where volleyball and beach volleyball remain core disciplines with strong global and UK viewership.

Oliver Clarke, Chief Partnerships Officer at Volleyball World, said, “Volleyball World has an ambitious vision for the global growth of the sport. Partnering with Red Tiger strengthens our commercial capabilities as we continue to build a premium, future-facing platform for brands looking to connect with our global audience.”

When The Algorithms Eat Your Sports Content Strategy

The way content is created for teams and players is being guided by what’s demanded by the platforms as much as the business plan. Is that going to benefit the clubs or the spectators, asks David Granger of content marketing agency Arc & Foundry.

There was a time when a player’s value was measured in goals, assists or the occasional less-than-savoury tackle. Now athletes need to demonstrate engagement rate, follower growth and their charisma in vertical video. Clubs may talk about authentic connections, but, let’s face it, some (most?) of their digital output is as much about satisfying a feed’s criteria as its supporters.

Broader distribution fuelled by algorithms certainly looks like progress. According to Sports Business Journal, short-form social platforms will now deliver to more than 70% of users who don’t follow the account. Discovery and non-follower reach has replaced community engagement as the headline number.

In practice, this changes strategy. The safest path to success is no longer creating content which fits in with your club’s ethos; it’s creating for the feed. A goal from a freekick is great, but a post-match changing-room dance synced to a song trending on TikTok is more predictable. The latter reliably racks up completion rates and replays, the metrics the social platforms state are key to distribution.

Leagues and clubs have seen the benefit and adapted quickly. The NBA is a prime example: platform-specific edits, heavy use of behind-the-scenes content, relaxed controls on fan sharing. Short-form clips now account for most the NBA’s digital interactions. By building content which platforms recognise as high-performing, and you’ll be rewarded you scale.

But. But… 

When everyone is working towards the same factors, everything starts to look the same (and yes, we’re casting a side-eye in your direction Generative AI. We know where you’re heading). Identical formats. Identical pacing. Identical captions. It’s hard to claim to be authentic when your post could have come from half a dozen other clubs with the logo cropped out.

Sprout Social data shows Premier League clubs seeing behind-the-scenes content outperform everything else. TikToks of players laughing in the tunnel will beat match graphics for engagement and watch time. Handheld footage will outperform carefully crafted big moments.

And players are increasingly acting as media channels. Content-ready athletes whose follower demographics are a better pitch to sponsors. And while we may not have scouts checking TikTok analytics alongside expected goals (yet), social footprint shapes how players are packaged and promoted.

Similarly, sponsors accelerate this. Campaigns will always have a social element to them: excellent for reach. Less convincing if you believe not every story worth telling fits into twelve seconds with subs.

Clearly sports content marketers cannot abandon algorithms’ influence or retreat to chronological feeds and grainy images. Used intelligently, platforms will broaden audiences, surface niche stories and unlock genuinely creative formats. The problem starts when optimisation becomes obedience.

The risk with sport content is when calendars are built around what the feed prefers rather than what the sport means, something vital erodes.

The challenge is treating algorithms as tools, not rules. When a platform decides what a moment is worth before fans do, sport stops being live. It starts being ranked. And we should probably stop pretending the algorithm is working for the team, the player, the club or the driver.

Fanatics And OBB Media Unveil Content Studio

Fanatics, a global sports platform, and OBB Media, the award-winning next-gen entertainment studio, have announced the launch of Fanatics Studios, a transformative new joint venture poised to be the premier global studio for sports entertainment. Built to independently create, finance, produce, and distribute best-in-class content at the intersection of sports and culture, Fanatics Studios will launch with a slate spanning feature films and documentaries, unscripted and scripted originals, one-of-a-kind live event specials, premium digital series, and more.

Fanatics Studios brings together industry-leading capabilities, resources and relationships from both companies: pairing Fanatics’ unmatched reach and impact as one of the most dynamic companies in sports which boasts a roster of thousands of preeminent athletes and sports partners which span the apparel industry, trading cards and collectibles, sports betting and iGaming, events and more, with OBB’s proven ability to drive culture through storytelling and create award-winning content with the biggest names in entertainment, amassing billions of views.

Fanatics Studios is launching with a premium slate of projects and partnerships including:

  • LA28: Fanatics Studios will enter into a strategic content partnership with the LA28 Olympic and Paralympic Games, leading production across marquee film, television, and digital projects promoting athletes and culture leading into the Games, and looking back at their defining moments.
    • The Official Olympics Film: Fanatics Studios is being bestowed the honor of producing the official Olympic film, which will be set for a theatrical release and have a director named later.
  • The Fanatics Flag Football Classic: A first-of-its-kind round robin tournament featuring three teams of incredible current and legendary football players and world-class athletes, including Tom Brady coming out of retirement to make his flag football debut, broadcast live on Fox in March from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.     
  • One More Drive: A multi-part docu-follow on Tom Brady, produced in partnership with Shadow Lion. Following the next chapter in Tom’s storied career, as the seven-time Super Bowl Champion comes out of retirement, preparing for the Fanatics Flag Football Classic in 2026 and 2027, and potentially competing for a roster spot on Team USA as flag football makes its Olympic Games debut at LA28.
  • The 2026 ESPY Awards: Fanatics Studios will join ESPN and Full Day Productions to produce The 2026 ESPYS Presented by Capital One, the annual awards show that celebrates and recognizes major sports achievements and excellence, the defining athletes, and most iconic moments of the year.
  • ESPN: Fanatics Studios and ESPN have additionally entered an overall partnership with hours of committed programming across 2026 & 2027. The partnership includes the renewal of Fanatics Fest All Access, the one-hour special providing an all-access pass into Fanatics Fest — the world’s number one sports fan festival.
  • WWE: Fanatics Studios and WWE have entered into a meaningful overall partnership, with a multi-project commitment across unscripted and digital content:
    • WWE digital shows, including What Do You Wanna Talk About? with Cody Rhodes, What’s Your Story? with Steph McMahon, Six Feet Under with The Undertaker, and The Raw Recap Show hosted by Megan Morant and Sam Roberts, distributed on the WWE YouTube channel which has 112 million subscribers, the 11th most-subscribed channel worldwide. The channel surpassed 100 billion total lifetime views on YouTube, the 10th channel in history to do so.
    • YEE(A)T with The Usos: Fanatics Studios will debut an unscripted culinary series with WWE Superstars Jimmy and Jey Uso, who will take their tag team efforts on the road with a BBQ travel show featuring fellow WWE superstars and celebrity friends distributed across WWE’s social and YouTube channels.
  • MLB: Fanatics Studios and MLB are launching an official global partnership to produce original content that deepens fan engagement and elevates baseball’s cultural relevance worldwide.
    • World Baseball Classic: A docu-series chronicling the biggest global event in baseball as nations compete for the 2026 WBC title. Produced alongside Box To Box Films.

“I’m incredibly excited about launching Fanatics Studios and adding an important content and media business to our growing sports platform that also supports all of our existing businesses,” said Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin. “We could not have dreamed up a better partner in Michael Ratner and the team at OBB, and together we are going to continue pushing our mission of relentlessly enhancing the fan experience by creating content that brings fans closer than ever to the teams, players, sports, cultural moments and events that they love in a way that’s never been done before.”

“Sports and pop culture are converging at the heart of the global entertainment landscape and we’re building Fanatics Studios to redefine what is possible at that intersection,” said Michael D. Ratner. “At OBB, our mission has always been to work with the greatest and most ambitious partners, and Fanatics is undeniably that — a powerhouse that is respected by athletes, leagues, organizations, and fans across the sports universe. I can think of no better partner to supercharge the next phase of growth in our sports business, and I look forward to continuing to work with Michael Rubin and the entire Fanatics team as we build the best-in-class studio for the future of sports entertainment.”

Fanatics Studios formally combines OBB Sports’ go-forward production business with Fanatics’ existing media partnerships, creating the exclusive entity for all sports-related content for both companies moving forward. OBB Pictures will handle physical production on all Fanatics Studios projects. Ratner will be the CEO of Fanatics Studios while continuing to lead all of OBB Media’s separate businesses. Prior projects from OBB Sports that predate the venture and will remain separate include Cold as Balls with Kevin Hart, which just surpassed its 100th episode, recent breakout hit Speed Goes Pro with IShowSpeed, the recently announced Kevin Durant docu-series for Netflix, and the Peabody and Sports Emmy award-winning Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa.

Fanatics and OBB also recently announced a ten-year partnership to continue to co-produce Fanatics Fest, the world’s number one fan festival, which will return to the Javits Center in New York City on July 16-19.

FIFA Signs Stats Perform As Official Betting Data and Betting Partner

FIFA has announced that it has selected sports AI and data pioneer Stats Perform as its first-ever official betting data and betting streaming rights distributor.

The landmark multi-year agreement grants Stats Perform exclusive rights to distribute official betting data and live streams for selected FIFA properties, including all 104 matches at the expanded FIFA World Cup 2026™, as well as the FIFA Women’s World Cup Brazil 2027™, the FIFA Futsal World Cup 2028™, the FIFA Futsal Women’s World Cup 2029™, the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup™ in 2026 and 2028, the FIFA U-20 World Cup™ in 2027 and 2029 and the FIFA Intercontinental Cup™ from 2026 to 2029 inclusive. It also grants exclusive betting rights to thousands of matches per season across FIFA Member Association competitions powered by FIFA+.

Stats Perform’s agile RunningBall team will collect and exclusively distribute ultrafast official FIFA betting data to licensed sports betting operators for modelling, trading, settlement and in-play front-end use for the competitions covered in the agreement. Its globally trusted Opta team will exclusively provide official player statistics, insights, live scores and match trackers to sportsbooks.

Romy Gai, FIFA Chief Business Officer, said: “We are delighted to partner with Stats Perform, a global leader in sports data. This innovative partnership will create great opportunities to deliver official products for the benefit of the game and its fans.”

Stats Perform will also serve as an official distributor of live FIFA match streams to customers of licensed sports betting operators in selected territories. This includes the exclusive distribution of FIFA World Cup 2026 and FIFA Women’s World Cup Brazil 2027 streams via Stats Perform’s award-winning, AI-enhanced Bet LiveStreams service.

Additionally, Stats Perform’s Integrity team will provide support to FIFA Integrity regarding Member Association content on FIFA+ that is covered under the partnership.

Carl Mergele, Chief Executive Officer at Stats Perform said: “FIFA competitions represent the pinnacle of the world’s biggest game. Our clients will be delighted we’re able to add FIFA competitions to our Opta and RunningBall official betting data portfolio, and our innovative, AI-enriched Bet LiveStreams service. We share FIFA’s vision to help the magic of the beautiful game be felt more deeply, by more fans, worldwide.”

Target Darts Inks Multi-Million Pound Deal with World Champion Luke Littler

Target Darts has signed a new long-term, multi-million-pound agreement with recently crowned double PDC World Champion, Luke Littler, securing the future of one of the most impactful partnerships the sport has ever seen. 
 
The new deal represents the largest agreement in darts history between a brand and a player, reflecting Littler’s extraordinary achievements and Target’s long-term belief in his continued impact on and off the oche. 
 
Now the World Number One, Premier League Champion, back-to-back World Champion and Ten-time Major winner, ‘The Nuke’ has rewritten the record books, driven unprecedented global attention and introduced darts to a new generation, young and old. 
 
Speaking about the announcement, Target’s Chairman Garry Plummer said: “I met Luke at the BDO Youth World Championship Qualifier when he was 12, and that day his dad asked if we would sponsor him.

“We’d never taken on someone so young, but I saw something special in him and saying yes was easy. Watching him grow since, as both a player and a person, has been a privilege. His achievements on and off the oche have been remarkable, and this new agreement celebrates everything we’ve built together and the exciting future ahead.” 

James Tattersall, Group CEO at Target, added: “Luke’s rise has been extraordinary and he has played a major role in elevating both the sport and our brand globally.

“The scale of this new agreement reflects not only what Luke has already achieved, but the immense potential ahead. It secures the long-term future of our partnership and strengthens our ability to keep pushing darts forward through innovation, product development and global growth.” 

Reflecting on the deal, Luke Littler said: “Target has believed in me from day one and I’m delighted that there are many more years to come. 

“From my playing career to my product range, we’ve built everything together and I’m really excited to commit to our partnership long-term and see where we can take this next.” 
 
The partnership extends beyond competition and commercial success. Following his recent World Championship triumph, Littler personally purchased a brand-new set of Apple AirPods for every member of Target Darts staff, as a thank-you for their continued hard work and support throughout his career to date – a gesture that reflects the close, long-standing relationship between player and brand. 
 
Alongside his competitive success, Littler has played a hands-on role in developing a full Luke Littler product range loved by fans globally– including his replica darts, Nuke-branded dartboards, and an entry-level range of magnetic dartboards designed for children.  
 
That range has expanded significantly in recent months and is now stocked by major national retailers including Smyths Toys, Argos, and TGJones, alongside a growing list of international partners, underlining Littler’s reach far beyond traditional darts retail. 
 
Littler was also recently the face of Target’s largest-ever media campaign, spanning television and digital platforms across the UK, Germany, and the United States. The campaign marked a step-change in how darts is marketed globally and reinforced Target’s ambition to position the sport alongside the world’s leading consumer brands. 
 
This announcement comes during a period of continued momentum for Target. Over the past year, the company has launched official licensed product collaborations with Disney / Star Wars and Xbox, while its Omni auto-scoring system delivered a bumper Christmas period, achieving record sales and further accelerating the digitisation of the sport. 
 
With darts experiencing unprecedented global growth, Target and Littler now look ahead with confidence, united in their ambition to continue defining the future of the sport at every level.