Updated / Friday, 9 Oct 2026 11:27
Experience and entertainment group FUEL has agreed a deal to buy 53Six, the Dublin and London-based sports marketing agency.
Headquartered in Dublin with dedicated teams across the US and UK, FUEL delivers more than 650 experiences and events across 55 cities around the world.
Its clients include PayPal, Coca-Cola, Google, Meta, Airbnb, Universal Music Group, World Rugby and Amgen.
Founded in 2013 by Jamie Deasy and Brian McDermott, FUEL also operates major cultural festivals, including WellFest, Beyond the Pale and Kaleidoscope festival, the latter in partnership with Festival Republic, Live Nation and MCD.
Its global reach includes last week’s U2’s 50th-anniversary celebration in partnership with Universal Music Group and Full Stop Management, the AI-powered fan village at the Amgen Irish Open, World Cup fan zones for Budweiser, global conferences for Coca-Cola and the Irish premiere of Gladiator II.
Founded in 2016, 53Six is a full-service sports marketing and growth agency. Its clientso include Arsenal, Juventus, FAI, Leinster Rugby, the IRFU, Jacksonville Jaguars, Flutter and UEFA.
Under the terms of today’s deal, 53Six will continue to operate under its existing brand identity as part of the FUEL group, led by co-founders Tom Fox and Marcus McDonnell.
FUEL’s co-founder and managing director Jamie Deasy said that 53Six brings deep expertise in sport, performance marketing, and audience intelligence, while FUEL brings scale across live experiences, entertainment and high-end content production.
“Together, we are building an end to end global growth engine for clients around fandom, combining world class live experiences and content with the fan-data and insight to demonstrate their impact, while creating significant growth opportunities for both businesses internationally,” he added.
Tom Fox, co-founder and CEO of 53Six, said the company had been looking for a strategic partner that understood how sport and live experiences are increasingly interconnected, and could further accelerate its growth internationally.
“Since day one, we’ve believed in the power of sport to create meaningful shared experiences, and in today’s world, that belief feels more relevant than ever,” he stated.
Marcus McDonnell, co-founder and COO of 53Six, said the two firms’ capabilities are highly complementary.
“53Six brings the sharp end of sports marketing, FUEL brings scale across experiences and high-end production, and together we share expertise in content and creative. That’s a genuinely different proposition for the industry and we are excited to join the FUEL group for this next chapter,” he added.
