📺 Welcome to the New-Age of Sports Experiences

It’s a fight for the best viewing experience in sports, and Cosm is on its way to leading the pack.

After the sad passing at the age of 93, actor James Earl Jones always found a way to make his audience laugh, cry, and feel terror. He is one of the few performers to achieve the EGOT — winning each an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony award throughout his career. He played roles such as Darth Vader from Star Wars, King Jaffe Joffer from Coming to America, and Terence Mann from Field of Dreams. But, probably his most well known role was him using his god-given gift…his voice as Mufasa from The Lion King. I’m still sitting, here, shaking from the moment in the movie where Mufasa’s ghost (whoops spoiler alert!) tells Simba to remember that he’s the one, true king.

Why is this relevant? It’s a great question! Maybe it’s because Jones reminds me of a big screen, theater voice or maybe his passing refreshed my memory that he was the true voice of reason…or maybe, selfishly, I remain wishing we had the opportunity to hear him narrate a sporting event. Specifically, an immersive sporting event, like Cosm (what a transition 👏).

You’ve probably seen video scenes the last few weeks of a bunch of fans sitting in front of a massive TV and getting super confused if heaven really does exist. So what is Cosm? What does its business model look like? And will this reset the market when it comes to sporting events?

Let’s get after it…

What is Cosm?

• Cosm is a new domed, immersive venue company that opened its first pair of three-story, 65,000-square-foot locations this summer (LA and Dallas) after raising $250M.

  • This round of investment included billionaire sports investors such as: Marc Lasry (former co-owner of the Milwaukee Bucks), David Blitzer (co-managing partner of the Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Devils) and Dan Gilbert (majority owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers).

• The setup includes an 87-foot-by-55-foot diameter dome with surrounding visuals and graphics that make you feel like you’re at the game’s location.

• It’s quickly gaining popularity thanks to its ability to make fans feel like they’re in the front row of a stadium that’s thousands of miles away.

  • Just a couple weekends ago, scenes from Cosm Dallas, showed the UT-Michigan game from Ann Arbor…and let’s just say social media had a field day.

• Cosm’s core business is providing and servicing its technology to nearly 800 planetariums and science centers worldwide.

• What makes Cosm so special? Well, it might actually be the best viewing experience in sports — and in some cases, challenging an in-person game.

What does their business model look like?

• Cosm’s current venues cost between $80-90M to build, and they make attendees feel like they are at the real-life stadium of a sporting event using a 180-degree LED display that can go from 8K to 12K-plus (depending on the event).

  • Cosm offers multiple camera angles per event, enabling fans to experience several different vantage points

    • Such as, viewing experiences in the endzone for college football games, courtside seats at NBA games, and against the fence for UFC fights.

• Cosm is able to pull this off because it 1) signed distribution deals with Fox, ESPN, NBC, TNT, the NBA, and UFC for the rights to broadcast the content, and 2) the company’s proprietary tech stack includes physical camera setups with a five-person team the necessary access and sideline space to capture additional game footage.

• Right now, the company believes its prime demo covers overflow audiences from sold-out concerts, Olympics, the Superbowl, e-sports games, educational lectures, front-row seats to rocket launches, etc.

  • It’s not hard to see why this idea works so well — it’s why experiences such as IMAX, Sphere, Alamo Drafthouse, and TopGolf have worked so well.

What’s next for the company?

• The $250M series B round will help Cosm reach its goal of opening 50 locations by the end of the decade.

  • That includes a planned venue set to open in Atlanta and other potential venues in New York, Miami, Las Vegas, Europe, and the Middle East.

• It’s not hard to envision Cosm assembling a global network with daylong programming costing roughly $20 to $200 a ticket (food and drink NOT included).

• We even saw prices higher than that in recent weeks…

  • For Arizona-KSU, booths in Cosm that fit up to five people sold for ~$400.

  • Last Saturday’s Texas A&M–Florida game, which comes by way of a separate deal with ESPN, some luxury packages at the Dallas venue were selling for more than $1,000.

It’s only the beginning for Cosm. But the one thing, that will make them a success is getting the consumer not just come and see one event and leave, but to linger. It’s the casino model and that’s worked out pretty well throughout the decades 😉.

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Quick Hitters

• 🐶 Tipping is coming to a Tennessee Volunteers stadium near you, Knoxville! Oh and that tip is going towards the NIL fund 😉. With schools soon set to be allowed to pay athletes around $22M per year (if and when the House v. NCAA settlement is approved). Tennessee is planning to get a portion of that money from a 10% “talent fee” that will be added to tickets across all of their sporting events. That money will go directly to paying athletes. If fans want, they can choose to give Tennessee additional talent fees beyond the 10% of their ticket costs. AD Danny White said he hopes to raise about $10M from that initiative. Separately, Tennessee football tickets in 2025 will increase 4.5%

• 🇨🇦 A new owner is coming to the city of Toronto! Rogers Communications has reached an agreement to acquire Bell Canada Enterprise’s 37.5% stake in Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment for CA$4.7B (~$3.5B USD). MLSE is the parent company of the NHL’s Toronto Maple Leafs, the NBA’s Toronto Raptors, and MLS’ Toronto FC. Rogers already owned 37.5% of MLSE, and it puts a total valuation on the entity of $9.3B. Rogers also owns the Toronto Blue Jays, who are worth $2.3B, according to Sportico. Larry Tanenbaum owns the remaining 25% stake in MLSE, which also includes the Canadian Football League’s Toronto Argonauts. The transaction is expected to close in mid-2025.