Illustration by LoreCourtesy Pro League Network

Place your bets for extra CarJitsu and aggressive carrom.

Pro League Network, a lately fashioned producer of area of interest sports activities to create betting content material for sportsbooks, has closed on a seed funding spherical from well-known venture capital investor Roger Ehrenberg. Company executives mentioned they raised a “low seven figure” quantity from Ehrenberg’s VC finds IA Ventures and Eberg Capital and can formally announce the information later immediately.

“There are a lot of synergies because of what Eberg Capital is focused on right now, everything from his lead investment in bringing SlamBall back and his follow-on round in Betr Media, and [he] has always been focused on media,” mentioned Pro League Network co-founder Bill Yucatonis in a telephone name.

Yucatonis and one other long-time on line casino and gaming govt, Mike Salvaris, fashioned PLN in December with the purpose of making area of interest sports activities appropriate for sports activities wagering. The firm has 16 sports activities competing or in growth, together with CarJitsu, an in depth fight match that takes place inside a automobile, SlapFIGHT, its circuit of the Russian slapping contest, and the World Putting League, a mini-golf professional league. The firm seeks to program matches to happen in useless spots of the sports activities calendar, filling gaps the place there are few to no betting alternatives.

“Three of the four professional sports have an overlapping schedule in the months they are active, let alone the days of the week, and we thought there was an interesting opportunity there to really own the other parts of the schedule,” mentioned Salvaris in a telephone name.

Salvaris, an Australia native who labored within the sports activities observe at McKinsey & Co. and helped developed the Colonial Downs horse racing monitor in Virginia, factors to horseracing for instance of the demand for bettable content material. The majority of betting volumes in horseracing isn’t on top-tier thoroughbred contests, however as a substitute on early day and mid-week claiming races, that are sometimes contests of lower-quality horses being showcased for potential patrons.

Another instance of the potential of area of interest sports activities: In Colorado alone about $80 million is wagered on desk tennis yearly.

The Pro League Network’s enterprise mannequin is exclusive in that it’s agnostic about whether or not one other broadcaster needs to choose up its sports activities, and it isn’t pursuing conventional promoting throughout video games. Instead, PLL shares within the income generated from bets at casinos and on cellular apps, affiliate charges and sponsorship {dollars} in its leagues. “We don’t care about ticket sales, concession sales or anything like that,” Salvaris mentioned. “We’re about the home-streaming experience and specifically the home-viewing and wagering experience.”

The PLL buildings its broadcasts to tug in viewers and bettors who in all chance haven’t any familiarity with the game on the display screen. It does that partially by breaking down acquainted, if extra advanced video games like golf, into element video games, just like the mini-golf league and its Xtreme Long Drive League. Or by creating sports activities which have a right away entertaining twist, similar to CarJitsu, and the yet-to-debut BeastBall, a gladiator-like one-on-one tilt constructed off the foundations of rugby. Whatever the sport, PLN’s formulation is to spend time introducing the gamers and their experience to create rooting pursuits, clarify the sport and its guidelines, and create wagering alternatives with the competition, often structured in bite-sized, one-on-one rounds.

“By no means do we think we’re going to take down the NFL, nor is that our focus, but there’s a whole category of people that are casual bettors, want good entertainment and want to watch it with their community,” mentioned Yucatonis, who beforehand helped construct Everest Poker as chief advertising officer.

The funding from Ehrenberg, initially a Silicon Valley-focused enterprise capitalist who determined to house in on sports activities investing, will go towards increasing PLN’s programming of dwell occasions. Right now the corporate produces about an hour to 90 minutes of dwell matches per week, principally within the World Putting League, and want to improve its dwell programming to maybe 12 hours within the subsequent yr, in line with the executives. DraftKings, Best365 and Betfred already carry PLN content material for betting in 10 states in addition to some nations exterior the U.S.

In addition to closing the seed funding, PLN has additionally added as advisors Chris Grove, who leads sports-betting targeted VC fund Acies Investments and is a well known betting analyst, and Jeff Ma, the host of “Bet The Process” sports betting podcast and a former govt at Microsoft.

“PLN is at the forefront of creating a new kind of bettable entertainment,” Ehrenberg mentioned in a press launch that might be launched later Tuesday by PLN. “We’ve been impressed by the momentum they have generated across the industry.”