New financing to fuel athlete safety and insurance solutions expansion across youth, recreational, collegiate, and professional sports

December 11, 2024 08:30 AM Eastern Standard Time

MINNEAPOLIS–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Players Health, the leading provider of athlete safety and sports insurance solutions, today announced the successful closing of its $60 million Series C funding round. The round was led by Bluestone Equity Partners, the institutionally-backed global private equity firm focused on the Sports, Media & Entertainment industry. The investment brings Players Health’s total funding to over $100 million and signals a bold new chapter in the company’s mission to redefine athlete safety across amateur and professional sports.

Founded by a former professional football player, Players Health provides risk management services, reporting tools, and insurance products to sports organizations, empowering them to stay ahead of ever-changing safety and compliance responsibilities on its data-driven and tech-enabled platform. Players Health will use the funding to accelerate its growth on several fronts, including advancement of its AI-powered product personalization, strategic M&A to broaden its market reach and expand capabilities, and expansion of its workforce to meet increasing consumer demand for its growing portfolio of specialized products and services.

“With more than 440,000 amateur sports organizations and over 60 million people playing organized sports in the United States, the need to prioritize and enhance the safety and wellbeing of athletes has never been greater,” said Tyrre Burks, founder and CEO of Players Health. “This investment and partnership will enable us to continue expanding Players Health’s nationwide reach, fostering a safer, more supportive ecosystem for athletes at every level.”

“Participatory sports have experienced seismic growth over the past decade, and projections estimate youth sports alone will nearly double to $69 billion over the next six years,” said Bobby Sharma, Founder & Managing Partner of Bluestone Equity Partners. “This growth, coupled with the rapidly evolving economic landscape of name, image, and likeness in college athletics, creates unprecedented opportunities and challenges for athletes, families, and organizations alike. This funding round underscores the need and opportunity to build the necessary advisory infrastructure to unify and streamline the fragmentation of vendors and services in today’s sports insurance market.”

As a part of this investment, Bluestone’s Walker Brumskine and Jake Harris will join the Players Health Board of Directors. Their combined experience scaling innovative businesses will provide Players Health invaluable guidance as the company works to expand its services, which have already reached more than 5.5 million youth athletes across the country. To date, Players Health’s customer base includes organizations such as USA Softball, 3-Step Sports, RCX Sports, American Youth Soccer Organization, Orangetheory, and more.

“With its expanded capabilities, Players Health will increase its support of the entire sports ecosystem, helping drive collaboration between all stakeholders, including standardization of best practices for athlete safety and risk management across the country,” added Brumskine, a Partner at Bluestone.

Additional investors in the round include Mosaic General Partners, RPM Ventures, SiriusPoint and TriplePoint Capital.

BMS Capital Solutions and Advisory acted as the exclusive financial advisor to Players Health on the transaction.

ABOUT PLAYERS HEALTH

Players Health is a sports technology company providing digital risk management services, reporting tools and insurance products to sports organizations to empower them to stay ahead of their ever-changing safety and compliance responsibilities. Working towards establishing the safest environment for athletes, Players Health views the health and safety of athletes as a priority in today’s sports landscape. For more information, visit www.playershealth.com.

ABOUT BLUESTONE EQUITY PARTNERS

Headquartered in New York City, Bluestone Equity Partners is a private equity firm harnessing a unique combination of blue-chip business and investing experience, coupled with deep industry ties, to forge highly strategic capital partnerships with established Sports, Media & Entertainment businesses and properties. Led by Founder & Managing Partner Bobby Sharma, Bluestone strives to partner with exceptional management teams and rights holders seeking growth and scale on a global basis. For more information, visit www.bluestoneequity.com.

Contacts

For Players Health:
playershealth@hotpaperlantern.com

For Bluestone:
Media
pr@bluestoneequity.com

Investors
+1-212-597-2704
ir@bluestoneequity.com

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