Jake Paul claims to have revolutionized boxing. Now he’s raising $50 million to shake up another part of the sports world.
On August 8, Jake Paul made what he called “one of the most important announcements of my life.” Across his social media channels, the influencer-turned-boxer revealed a new company called Betr. With $50 million behind it, Betr is trying to make a splash as both a sports media outlet and a sports gambling platform.
Betr will be made up of two separate halves. On one hand, it is a media company, with Paul serving as the on-air host. The outspoken creator will head to Betr’s YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram channels each Monday to host BS with Jake Paul. According to Paul, his talk show will regularly feature conversations with professional athletes. After vlogging from a boxing gym on his personal channel, Paul he now plans to shine a light on the training methods employed by the sportspeople he will interview.
The first episode of BS doubles as a grand reveal for Betr. In the video, Paul cites other YouTube stars who have launched their own business ventures, including MrBeast, the Nelk boys, and Jake’s brother Logan Paul. The elder Paul sibling recently teamed up with former boxing rival KSI to launch a beverage brand called Prime Hydration. Jake Paul positioned Betr as his change to follow in the footsteps of those enterprising creators. “I singlehandedly revived boxing,” he said in the first BS episode. “Now it’s time to reinvent the sports landscape with my new company Betr.”
True to Betr’s billing, its gambling-oriented side will not function like a typical sportsbook. Instead of letting users wager on the outcomes of games or seasons, Betr will use a “micro-betting” format, in which users gamble on individual plays, pitches, or actions. Paul said that he turned down a $40 million offer from a crypto company because he prefers the above-board nature of the modern-day sports betting industry to the less-regulated world of Web3.
“There’s a new sheriff in town”
Betr users who don’t feel like gambling will be able to check out the platform’s programming. Based on the company’s early investors — including active and recently-retired NFL stars like Ezekiel Elliott, Dez Bryant, Richard Sherman, and DeSean Jackson — it will be able to provide the close level of locker room access that Paul promises.
At the same time, Betr’s 25-year-old co-founder wants to shake up an industry that he sees as old, out of touch, and swayed by corporate interests. Paul called out “Stephen A. Smith, Pat McAfee, Skip Bayless, [and] Shannon Sharpe” as sports media icons he wants to disrupt. “There’s a new sheriff in town,” he told those talking heads.
Betr may be turning down crypto money and corporate influence, but it’s not exactly going broke. To the contrary, the company has about $50 million in funding behind it, which it raised across two funding rounds. The firms that led those rounds include Florida Funders, Aliya Capital Partners, and Fuel Venture Capital. Betr co-founder Joey Levy told Axios that his company plans to use its funding to double in size, which would give it about 30 employees. “You can probably expect 10+ videos a day from emerging content creators we’ve brought into the company,” Levy said. “But we’re initially focused on the premium content natives, starting with Jake’s show.”
How will Betr affect Jake Paul’s career trajectory?
Betr’s co-founder clearly sees his new company as a force with the potential to revolutionize sports media. But is he too late to the game? In an era when Amazon is calling on Dude Perfect to introduce its NFL streams to a modern audience, is there still room for Paul to pull fans away from the big networks?
You could ask a whole different set of questions about Paul’s sporting career. Now that he owns a gambling site, will he still be able to fight in the ring? For now, the answer seems to be yes, but sports gambling has changed radically since its widespread legalization. If it evolves even more, Paul could find himself choosing between BS and boxing.
Sources; Jake Paul, Betr, tubelifter, Wikipedia, Google News
