GameSquare Closes FanEngine Deal, Expects Revenue to Exceed $150 Million in 2027
Key Facts
GameSquare announced it had completed the purchase of sports, music and entertainment-related intellectual property assets from FanEngine, following shareholder approval at a special meeting held on October 22, 2026. The company said the closing moves the agreement announced in September into execution, ahead of the timing expected at the announcement, which was the fourth quarter of 2026. The assets include rights and relationships tied to entertainment brands and athletes, alongside a platform that enables direct, recurring revenue streams from audiences. GameSquare expects the deal to boost revenue and adjusted profitability, with its focus now on integrating the assets and expanding their commercial opportunities. In the market, the company's shares, ticker GAME, closed at $2.31 on October 23, the latest price in the EL7 data provided.
The FanEngine portfolio includes rights and relationships tied to the series Peaky Blinders and the character Simon's Cat, as well as 15 global athletes, including The Two Robbies & Friends and cricketer Ben Stokes. GameSquare said the assets expand the company's direct ownership of audience relationships, a move CEO Justin Kenna described when the agreement was announced as giving it greater ability to own the relationship with fans. Kenna added in the closing statement: "Our focus now is on integrating the acquisition and executing new commercial opportunities for our owned intellectual property assets." The company links the assets' importance to its ability to participate directly in returns from audience monetization, rather than limiting itself to providing services to audiences. The revenue streams it identified include rewards, commerce, products, ticketing, live experiences, licensing and brand partnerships.
In its preliminary 2026 outlook, GameSquare said FanEngine would contribute more than $85 million in revenue and $5 million in adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or adjusted EBITDA. The company added that the deal's impact on this metric would be immediate and positive, but it did not specify a standalone figure for the fourth quarter's contribution in the closing announcement, unlike the previous version of the news report. These figures are part of management's preliminary outlook for the year, not realized financial results. The company does not provide a forward reconciliation of adjusted EBITDA to GAAP net income, citing the difficulty of predicting and measuring certain items. Accordingly, the announced contribution is assessed using a non-GAAP metric, while the announcement does not include the corresponding net accounting figure for this outlook.
The company set a higher outlook for 2027, including revenue of more than $150 million, a gross margin above 50%, and adjusted EBITDA exceeding $30 million. These projections are based on a full 12 months of FanEngine platform contribution to financial results during that year, as the company explained when it announced the agreement. The 2027 figures therefore reflect a longer contribution period than the expected addition in 2026, and do not represent results already achieved. The metrics include revenue, gross margin and adjusted earnings, allowing the platform's performance to be tracked across more than one measure when results are released. Kenna said the next step is to integrate the acquisition and execute new commercial opportunities for the assets, without the announcement specifying a separate timeline for those opportunities to have an impact.
GameSquare announced the acquisition agreement in September, when it said closing was expected in the fourth quarter of 2026 and estimated the value of shares to be issued at closing at approximately $15.9 million, based on a closing share price of $2.95 on September 4. In its second-quarter 2026 results, the company reported revenue of $18.5 million, compared with $7.8 million in the same period of 2025, and gross margin rose to 49.0% from 29.4%. It also reported a net loss from continuing operations of $10.6 million, alongside positive adjusted EBITDA of $1 million, compared with an adjusted loss of $3.2 million a year earlier. The company said when it announced the agreement that FanEngine had relied on third parties for production, events, commerce and gamification, while GameSquare performs these functions in-house. The company expects to bring this spending in-house to benefit from its existing capabilities, while the next step Kenna announced centers on integration and capitalizing on the assets' commercial opportunities.