SportsInvest Newsflash

Stay up-to-date with sports investment trends & events worldwide

Sep 20, 2021

Various sports investment topics to discuss in this week’s press review:

Team investment: Ares Management & Inter Miami CF
League investment: LaLiga & CVC Capital Partners, Serie A & Advent International
Team-owned investment fund: Atlanta Falcons’ VC arm

Ares Management entering MLS by investing in Beckham's Inter Miami CF

Inter Miami CF announced that David Beckham as well as brothers Jorge and Jose Mas had finalized the buyout of Marcelo Claure and Masayoshi Son (Softbank's top execs). In addition, Ares Management has joined the franchise as a preferred equity investor through funds managed by its Credit Group.

Founded in 2018 and based in South Florida, Inter Miami launched its inaugural season in March 2020, becoming Major League Soccer’s (“MLS”) 25th professional sports club.

“We are excited to support the future growth of this franchise and look forward to a long-term relationship with both Inter Miami and MLS,” said Jim Miller, Partner and Co-Head of U.S. Direct Lending at Ares. “We also look forward to continuing to provide creative capital solutions to clubs and leagues in the sports franchise sector.”

“We believe that this investment is another example of how our significant scale and flexible capital enables us to provide compelling capital solutions to major sports league owners,” said Mark Affolter, Partner and Co-Head of U.S. Direct Lending at Ares. “We remain encouraged by the attractive industry tailwinds that are driving great demand for innovative investors, like Ares, in this sector.”

This is far from being Ares Management's first move in the sports industry. In a recent press release, they announced that funds managed by Ares had already committed more than $1 billion of debt / equity investments in the Sports, Media & Entertainment over the last 6 months.

Major deals include minority equity investments in LaLiga’s Atlético de Madrid and in Formula 1's McLaren Racing as part of a consortium led by MSP Sports Capital, as well as the arrangement of senior secured credit facilities to Major League Baseball’s San Diego Padres, Rugby Australia, and the Professional Fighters League.

Full story on Business Wire

Will Serie A reopen private equity talks?

In October 2020, a consortium comprised of private equity firms CVC Capital Partners, Advent International and FSI reportedly agreed last year to acquire a stake in a new media unit created by the Lega Serie, before the deal fell through following objections from certain clubs.

LaLiga has then been in the spotlight regarding the CVC deal (see below). But it seems that Serie A could get back in the game with talks reportedly being held about a new deal without CVC but with Advent International taking on a bigger role.

Full story on SportBusiness

LaLiga press release: Why is the agreement between LaLiga and CVC beneficial?

A few weeks ago, the CVC Capital Partners & LaLiga deal was approved by 38 out of LaLiga's 42 clubs, with Real Madrid CF and FC Barcelona voting against, thus reportedly lowering the investment to between €2.1 billion and €2.2 billion for a 8-9% stake.

Amidst multiple twists, LaLiga released an interesting piece offering a platform to club presidents and directors to explain why the association with CVC will be positive for Spanish football and the clubs.

LaLiga stated: “The agreement is designed to accelerate the transformation of LaLiga and the clubs into a global digital entertainment company with the capacity to forge closer relationships with fans and offer them richer experiences.”

Among other quotes, Atlético de Madrid’s CEO Miguel Ángel Gil Marín’s highlights the need to invest in data-driven fan relationship management: “The synergy between LaLiga and CVC will strengthen a fundamental aspect for the future of our industry, data. An industry like ours, sports and entertainment, needs to really know its supporters well. It isn’t enough to know how many supporters we have, we need to know who they are and be able to personalise our offers, which involves optimising club membership and satisfaction among the fans”, he told EFE.

Full story on LaLiga

NFL’s Atlanta Falcons entering the VC space

You might not have heard of AMB Sports & Entertainment, their portfolio gathers NFL's Atlanta Falcons, MLS' Atlanta United and the $1.6 billion Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

They are now launching a VC fund backed by AMBSE owned Arthur Blank focused on early-stage investment targeting tech startups in sports & entertainment.

Initial focus areas will include fan engagement, sports performance, live event operations as well as esports and betting.

In a similar move, Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment (owner of the NBA's Philadelphia 76ers and National Hockey League’s New Jersey Devils) created its own tech early-stage investment arm, HBSE Ventures. Previous investment already include basketball shot analysis app HomeCourt, group ticketing payments platform FEVO, strength training startup Proteus Motion, live streaming audience measurement firm StreamMetrics, and automated highlights company WSC Sports. HBSE also opened in 2016 its Sixers Innovation Lab, an accelerator housed in the 76ers’ training complex.

Full story on SportsProMedia

RedBird Capital Partners, Genius Sports: The NFL Valuations 2021 podcast

As Genius Sports' President for North America, Steve Bornstein leads partnerships with the NFL, NCAA, NASCAR, NBA and MLB. He also works closely with Genius Sports’ executive team to identify innovative and revenue accretive acquisition targets, helping the company drive the ongoing convergence of sports, betting and media.

RedBird Capital Partners' Managing Director Kevin LaForce spent 14 years working at the NFL's Media unit. He driving the League’s U.S. content distribution strategy and executing its major media partnerships, Kevin played a leading role in negotiating the League’s 2021 landmark media distribution deals with Amazon, CBS, Disney, Fox and NBC valued at over $110 billion

He also established the league's strategic investment entity (32 Equity) and worked on the transformational $950 million global data licensing partnership with Genius Sports.

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