Media company Overtime is starting another amateur sports league, this time for high school football players.
The Brooklyn, New York-based company will launch a low-contact, seven-on-seven football league in June called “OT7” it announced Tuesday. The move comes more than a year after Overtime launched a high school-level basketball league. The football program will run from June 9 through June 12 in Las Vegas.
Overtime said it plans to pay for expenses around the league using a portion of the $80 million it raised in April 2021 from investors including Jeff Bezos’ investment firm and global entertainer Drake. NFL quarterback Cam Newton is also an investor in OT7. Terms of Newton’s investment were not made available.
Overtime co-founder Dan Porter told CNBC the company is “doubling down” on amateur leagues.
“We’re focused on the biggest, most popular sports and finding our audience in those sports where we can effectively make something bigger than it had been,” he said.
Overtime distributes original sports content on social media outlets, including Snapchat, Alphabet’s YouTube and Meta’s Facebook. The company says it has more than 50 million followers across its social media channels. Its revenue comes from two sources: indirectly aligning with brands by integrating them into online media content and making money from video ads, and through e-commerce with its apparel offerings.
CNBC reported last year that Overtime raised more than $140 million since its launch in 2016. Pitchbook estimated Overtime’s valuation reached $280 million in March 2021. Porter declined to reveal specifics about the company’s valuation other than to say it’s less than $1 billion.
Porter cited Newton’s familiarity with seven-on-seven football camps, which would help with OT7…