The news: Bilt acquired Lava for $300 million, giving Bilt members rewards and loyalty experiences at major sporting and entertainment events, per a press release. 

Lava works with 56 professional sports franchises across the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, and MLS. Bilt will also use Lava’s AI tools to improve its personalized benefits and offers across its ecosystem.

How we got here: Bilt is expanding its rewards platform beyond rent.

• It launched Bilt Neighborhoods to broaden its rewards ecosystem to connected shops, restaurants, and gyms.
• And it partnered with Verifone to push its customer experience platform through the POS to make its Neighborhood rewards even more visible to members. 

Why this matters: Payment providers are leaning on rewards to shore up member loyalty. With 68% of US adults considering themselves fans of at least one sports team, per April Ipsos data, deals with sports teams could help providers expand their appeal to a broader array of potential customers.

For instance, American Express, the industry leader in experiential rewards, has doubled down on sports—it partners with the US Open, the WNBA, the NBA, the NFL, and F1. Chase has responded with its own lineup of US Open events and the NBA “Dinner on the Court” series.

Implications for issuers: By investing deeper in loyalty technology, Bilt can compete with issuers on perks and discounts geared toward the experiences with the broadest appeal—sports.

Issuers can respond by demonstrating their FMNs are more robust with a broader array of offers and merchant partners.

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