Tribe Sports Marketing, the boutique sports agency created in 2019, has acquired a minority stake in Sportswik as part of a wider long-term agreement with the Swedish sports technology company.
Sportswik and Tribe Sports Marketing announced the tie-up today, including the acquisition of a stake and an active commercial role to be played by the agency.
Tribe Sports Marketing was launched by Pedro Cubillos and Marco Gonzalez, former executives at the Lagardère Sports agency, and as reported by SportBusiness in August.
Sportswik, which has developed an AI-based media platform of the same name, was created in 2014 to help sports stakeholders generate and distribute user-generated content. It has worked with leagues, federations and tournament organisers in Sweden and the UK.
Under the agreement between the two companies, Tribe is to lead the international commercialisation of the multi-channel digital media hub and social platform for sports coverage. The two companies said that this would bring “an additional layer for innovative sponsorship activation and new revenues to its global network of customers among sport federations, leagues and other sporting events”.
Gonzalez, the chief operating officer at Tribe, which has offices in Barcelona, Miami and Stockholm, said: “Without a doubt the biggest asset that any sport organization has is its fanbase. But with unlimited entertainment options available to them, fans can no longer be taken for granted. Without fans there is no audience, which inevitably disrupts traditional media and sponsorship business models.
“Through our partnership with Sportswik we are offering our clients an innovative and sustainable way to engage directly with fans, which is essential to solidify the foundation of their sport, grow the participation and by extension grow the audience.”
Martin Wiklund, founder of Sportswik, remarked: “Following the successful launches of official apps and media platforms for the Swedish Football Association in 2019 and Swedish Floorball Association in 2020, we are super exited to join forces with Tribe Sports Marketing for our international expansion.
“Tribe’s great record of working closely with major sport stakeholders worldwide will be very valuable on our mission of democratizing sports media coverage, and enabling rights holders to take control over content, user data, and digital monetization in their own social platform.”
Cubillos is chief commercial officer at Tribe. He had been with Lagardère Sports for close to a decade, laterally as senior director for media in Latin America in a New York-based position. Gonzalez is also a former member of Lagardère Sports’ media team and previously managing director in Europe at the Lagardère-owned IEC in Sports.
Cubillos joined IEC in Sports at its Stockholm headquarters in 2010 as senior manager, sales and acquisitions, Americas and Europe.