Playfly Sports Goes International with Evolution Sports Acquisition

Playfly Sports has announced the acquisition of London-based Evolution Sports to work with Playfly’s U.S. team to maximize commercial potential of its clients through activations and sponsorships.

The acquisition of Evolution, with Dan Lipman and Archie Woodhead joining Playfly as co-managing directors, will provide Playfly with its first international office while accelerating the company’s global growth with rightsholders worldwide, including major global soccer properties, on a number of fronts including brand consulting.

“The European sports sponsorship landscape is ripe with opportunity,” said Playfly Founder and Chief Executive officer Mike Schreiber. “Playfly is uniquely positioned to deploy our proven platform internationally, helping our partners authentically reach, engage, monetize and measure fandom. Dan and Archie have a proven track record of driving significant value for their partners – we look forward to joining forces and scaling this business even further.”

Playfly’s European operation will leverage Playfly’s network to support internationally based sports leagues, teams and properties, as well as engaging their U.S. audiences via Playfly’s resources and capabilities. Lipman and Woodhead built their careers at agencies including CSM and IMG and today their work includes commercial representation and advisory relationships with properties across soccer, motorsport, Olympic sports and tennis.

“Playfly drives more media revenue within U.S. professional and collegiate sports than any other entity, so we are eager to introduce this outstanding company to the European sports marketplace,” Lipman said. “The Playfly team already brings deep international experience with a wealth of global clients. We are delighted that our current and future clients will benefit from the size, scale and expertise that Playfly will provide, along with activating their ‘Fandom as a Service’ platform to unlock commercial success globally.”

Playfly works with more than 2,000 brand partners and 100-plus properties including the NHL, NBA and Major League Baseball.