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Versant, parent company of Golf Channel, is going bigger on golf by buying the golf simulator company Full Swing (no connection to the Netflix golf show) for an eye-popping $530 million.
Tiger Woods invested in Full Swing in 2015 and has been an ambassador for the company ever since. Its technology powers TGL, the indoor team golf league founded by Woods and Rory McIlroy that completed its second season in March, using virtual holes projected onto a 53-feet-tall high-tech screen at the 1,500-seat SoFi Center in South Florida. Full Swing is also the official licensed simulator of the PGA Tour.
Versant—the publicly-traded Comcast spinoff company—is acquiring Full Swing from George Pyne’s Bruin Capital, which bought it in 2021 for $160 million, a 3x return on investment after just five years of ownership.
The transaction is expected to close by the end of this year.
Woods’s current ownership stake in Full Swing is between 1% and 2%, a source tells Front Office Sports. The golfer made at least one additional investment in the company after his initial deal in 2015 to reach his current ownership stake, but it’s unclear how much total cash he’s put in over time. Under Full Swing’s new valuation, a 2% stake would be worth $10.6 million.
Despite being a minority investor, Woods has had a significant voice in Full Swing’s direction as a company and influence over many aspects of its products, similar to his role with his Sun Day Red apparel brand.
Full Swing—based in Carlsbad, Calif., alongside a number of other major golf companies—has changed hands a number of times since its founding in 1986 by Floyd Arnold, who sold it to a group led by current CEO Ryan Dotters in 2015. Private equity firm North Castle Partners became Full Swing’s majority investor in 2017, and sold its controlling interest in the company to Bruin in 2021.
Other professional golfers that have official endorsement deals with Full Swing and use its simulators and launch monitors include PGA Tour stars Jordan Spieth and Xander Schauffele and LIV Golf stars Jon Rahm and Dustin Johnson. Golf-loving pro athletes from other sports also have deals with Full Swing, including Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen and Steph Curry.
Full Swing sells its simulators, which include technology for baseball and other sports, for at-home and commercial use. Its full studio kits (including a screen and projector) online have starting prices between $11,500 and $15,000 before customizations. Full Swing’s launch monitor costs $5,000.
Full Swing’s Place Within Versant
The Full Swing deal is the third major acquisition this year for Versant, which has a $5.37 billion market cap as of the end of last week, following deals to take over streaming platform Free TV Networks and AI financial analysis company StockStory.
Full Swing will operate within Versant’s digital platforms and ventures portfolio, and CEO Dotters will join Versant, led by former NBCUniversal chairman Mark Lazarus.
Beyond its collection of former Comcast-owned cable networks like Golf Channel, USA Network, and CNBC, among others, Versant’s portfolio includes tee time service GolfNow and the McIlroy-backed subscription platform GolfPass, as well as entertainment services Fandango and Rotten Tomatoes.
Versant’s new connection to TGL via Full Swing is also notable as the league is in the midst of negotiating a new media rights deal following the expiration of ESPN’s initial two-year contract. ESPN has had talks about extending, but Golf Channel could be a player for either TGL or the new women’s league WTGL, which will launch later this year.
