EX Sports and Lucra Partner to Turn Live Sports Audiences Into Active Competitors Across Tier 2 and Tier 3 Sports Communities

Lucra, the leading social competition platform, today announced a partnership with EX Sports, the sports engagement and gaming platform focused on Tier 2 and Tier 3 sports communities worldwide. EX Sports will deploy Lucra's mini-games product across its platform, activating between 30 and 50 sports-focused mini-games across multiple verticals over the next three to four years — one of the largest deployments of Lucra's mini-games product to date.

Lucra's mini-games product gives sports properties, media platforms, and entertainment brands a turnkey way to embed competitive gameplay directly into their existing fan experience with no engineering lift required. Lucra handles all payments, compliance, fraud prevention, and reward fulfillment out of the box, allowing partners to go from contract to live competition in weeks. For EX Sports, the integration delivers a scalable engagement layer across its platform and partner ecosystem — giving fans a reason to interact, compete, and earn rewards every day, not only during live events.

EX Sports was founded on the conviction that Tier 2 and Tier 3 sports communities are consistently overlooked by mainstream media and gaming platforms. The company entered the Web3 gaming sector in 2022 and built sports-based gaming experiences tied to live streaming events, generating strong engagement during broadcasts. But that experience also revealed a crucial insight: even the most passionate fan communities won't fight through complex onboarding. Traditional sports fans are difficult to convert into standalone Web3 ecosystems, and the window between live events is where fan attention is hardest to hold. The Lucra partnership is EX Sports' answer to both problems.

Through Lucra's accessible, plug-and-play competition infrastructure, fans watching or following live events through EX Sports and its partner network can participate in skill-based competitions, live predictions, and loyalty challenges without friction. Earned rewards are redeemable as gameplay credits and ecosystem benefits that keep fans active between events — addressing what EX Sports sees as one of the largest unsolved opportunities in sports media: maintaining meaningful fan engagement outside the live broadcast window.

"Most sports media companies still monetize attention only during the event itself," said Dylan Robbins, founder and CEO of Lucra. "EX Sports has spent years figuring out what actually keeps Tier 2 and Tier 3 sports fans engaged between live events. Our platform gives them the competition and rewards infrastructure to build loyal communities and create continuous engagement loops, not just a spike on game day."

For EX Sports, the Lucra partnership accelerates the U.S. expansion of its platform, including the wider rollout of the Urbanballer ecosystem. By deploying Lucra's mini-games product, EX Sports gains a competition and loyalty engine built around accessibility and retention — low barriers to entry, continuous engagement loops, and reward mechanics that compound across games, creator communities, and live event activations.

"We've spent years learning what actually keeps sports fans engaged between live events, and the answer always comes back to removing friction," said Toli Makris, CEO of EX Sports. "Our early Web3 experiences showed us that even passionate fan communities won't fight through complex onboarding. Lucra's mini-games product lets us meet fans where they already are and give them a simple, rewarding reason to compete and come back. That's exactly the gap we've been building toward closing."

The partnership is also designed to be complementary to EX Sports' longer-term strategy. The company is in discussions with strategic gaming partners in the Middle East around the development of AAA sports gaming titles connected to existing and future sports IPs with a focus on building premium long-term gaming franchises by 2030. Where that initiative focuses on depth and franchise development, the Lucra partnership focuses on scale, accessibility, and continuous fan engagement today — building the engaged user base, behavioral data, and loyalty infrastructure that strengthens the broader platform as it grows.

The first mini-games are live in the EX Sports app, with an expanded library of sports verticals rolling out through the end of 2026. Download the EX Sports app for Apple or Android to play today.

About Lucra

Lucra is a plug-and-play SDK that integrates into apps or websites, enabling peer-to-peer competitions with real-money or rewards. It handles compliance, payments, fraud prevention, and settlement out of the box, so partners can instantly offer gamified experiences without building or managing complex infrastructure themselves. Top entertainment, hospitality, and consumer brands, including Five Iron Golf, Puttshack, Backyard Sports, ChessKings, TouchTunes, and more, use Lucra's white-label technology to power tournaments and challenges, build loyalty, and drive new revenue. Learn more at www.playlucra.com. 

About EX Sports

EX Sports is a sports engagement, gaming, and media platform focused on underserved sports communities and next-generation fan participation models. The company combines live events, streaming, gaming, creator ecosystems, and loyalty infrastructure to create interactive sports experiences globally. Learn more at www.ex-sports.io.

Media Contact

Lindsay Linhart
Brand Strategist, Lucra
lindsay@playlucra.com