Former Jaguars quarterback Blake Bortles never thought much about investing while he was playing. “I told my financial adviser, ‘Just make sure my credit card doesn’t get declined when I swipe it,’” he tells Front Office Sports.

That changed after he retired in 2022, as Bortles began looking for ways to get involved in business. Now, he’s part of Momentous Sports, a new Orlando-based investment fund aiming to raise $100 million to invest in pro sports teams and nearby real estate, including residential housing, retail space, and public areas. Bortles declined to disclose the amount he invested, saying he made a “sizable investment that felt right for our family.”

Momentous, backed by Magnolia Hill Partners, also counts former NFL quarterbacks John Elway and Tim Tebow among its investors. It has already invested in USL Super League soccer team Sporting Jax.

Magnolia CEO Marley Hughes tells FOS the quarterbacks are not just “faces on a placard or a piece of collateral.”

“They’re actually invested with us; they believe in what we’re doing,” he says.

The launch of Momentous comes amid an unprecedented surge in private-equity interest in sports. PE investment in sports has been a trend for the past few years, but it has gone into overdrive lately. In September alone, Momentous announced its plans to raise $100 million; Arctos Partners unveiled a new business that will connect investors with pro sports opportunities; Apollo Global Management launched a dedicated sports division; CVC Capital Partners formed a new sports-specific arm; Chiron Sports Group rolled out Legacy 25, a fund backed by athletes like Rob Gronkowski and Brian Hoyer that will invest in and around the U.S. college sports landscape; and Avenue Sports Fund closed with more than $1 billion in capital commitments.

Momentous

In addition to everyone named above, Momentous is backed by Andrew Cathy, CEO of Chick-fil-A and grandson of the company’s founder.

Its first project is a mixed-use real estate development in Jacksonville, Fla., near a planned future stadium for both the men’s and women’s Sporting Jax soccer teams (the men’s team plays in the USL Championship and the women’s team plays in the Gainbridge Super League). 

Hughes wouldn’t share specifics of other deals in the works, but did tell FOS “our pipeline and diligence list is very long. We’ll be sharing more later this year.”

Arctos

Dallas-headquartered Arctos boasts a portfolio that features investments in more than 25 franchises, including 10% stakes in the Bills and Chargers, as well as investments in the NBA’s Warriors and Kings, MLB’s Giants, Dodgers, and Astros, the NHL’s Penguins, Devils, and Lightning, and more.

On Tuesday, the firm announced the formation of Arctos Capital Markets, which will identify sports investment opportunities and connect them to high-net-worth individuals.

“Our goal is simple: be the first call,” Arctos cofounder Doc O’Connor said in the press release, adding that for individual investors, the new business “offers an efficient path to minority or control ownership.”

Apollo

On Monday, Apollo revealed its new sports division, Apollo Sports Capital, which will be led by Al Tylis—former chairman of Mexican soccer team Club Necaxa. It will invest in everything from franchises, leagues, and venues to media and events.

Apollo isn’t necessarily known as a major player in sports, although it has made some inroads—for instance, it provided a $107 million (£80 million) loan to U.K. soccer team Nottingham Forest. And in September, The Athletic reported Apollo is looking to buy a significant stake in Atletico Madrid, which plays in Spanish soccer league LaLiga and is currently backed by another PE firm, Ares Management.

CVC

The portfolio of Luxembourg-based CVC includes holdings in LaLiga, the Women’s Tennis Association, and French soccer governing body Ligue de Football Professionnel, which oversees leagues including Ligue 1.

CVC’s sports assets have a combined value of about $13.6 billion. On Sept. 11, the firm revealed it will house those assets in a new entity called Global Sport Group, which is led by chair Marc Allera, whose experience includes serving as chair of Jagex, a British video game maker backed by CVC.

Chiron

The Swedish private-equity firm intends to invest $150 million across college programs through Legacy 25. In addition to Gronkowski and Hoyer, it counts as investors former NFL players Matthew Slater, Devin and Jason McCourty; former MLB player Kevin Youkilis; and Maya Brady, who plays professional softball and is Tom Brady’s niece.

Chiron says on its website it believes the college sports industry is “on the brink of an unprecedented gold-rush,” and there is room to capitalize, including through investments in institutions and conferences themselves, as well as adjacent businesses.

It has already done some of the latter, with one example being its investment in Jump, a software platform for sports teams cofounded by Alex Rodriguez that recently raised $23 million.

Avenue Sports

This fund, managed by former Milwaukee Bucks owner Marc Lasry, announced Monday that it closed its first investment vehicle with more than $1 billion in tow. 

Launched in November 2023, it has already invested in The Bay Golf Club—a team in TGL, the indoor golf league from Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy—as well as MLB’s Orioles and the U.S. SailGP team.

It sits under the umbrella of Lasry’s New York–based Avenue Capital. Lasry, whose firm unsuccessfully tried to buy Angel City before Disney CEO Bob Iger and his wife, Willow Bay, swooped in and purchased the club at an enterprise value of $250 million, still has dreams of buying an NWSL team, he told FOS during an episode of Portfolio Players earlier this year.

Electronic Arts, maker of sports video games like Madden and EA Sports College Football, is being purchased by a group that includes the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, Jared Kushner’s investment firm, and private-equity giant Silver Lake, in a deal that values the company at roughly $55 billion.

The transaction—which the companies are calling the “largest all-cash sponsor take-private investment in history”—calls for shareholders of the Redwood City, Calif.–based company to receive $210 per share in cash. That represents a 25% premium to EA’s share price as of market close last Thursday, before a Wall Street Journal report surfaced saying a deal was imminent.

The buying group is Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, Kushner’s Affinity Partners, and Silver Lake. They will own 100% of EA when the transaction is completed, which is expected in the first fiscal quarter of 2027. Compensation for the mega-deal will come via a combination of cash, rollover of the PIF’s existing stake in EA, and $20 billion in debt financing from JPMorgan Chase Bank.

The deal comes more than three decades after EA went public on the Nasdaq in 1990. The company, which will continue to be led by CEO Andrew Wilson and keep its current headquarters, was founded in 1982.

“Looking ahead, we will continue to push the boundaries of entertainment, sports, and technology, unlocking new opportunities,” Wilson said in Monday’s press release.

The agreement represents the latest step in Saudi Arabia’s ambitious Vision 2030 plan to diversify its economy and transform its global image. Sports has played a big role in that plan, from the formation of LIV Golf to the 2023 launch of SURJ Sports Investment, which has invested in the likes of Professional Fighters League and broadcaster DAZN. The PIF also owns stakes in video game makers Take-Two Interactive (which makes the popular NBA 2K) and Activision Blizzard through a subsidiary called Savvy Games Group.  

The Saudi ties for the EA deal do not stop at the PIF. Affinity Partners, launched in 2021 by Kushner—President Donald Trump’s son-in-law—is reportedly backed in large part by sovereign wealth funds from Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia. In Monday’s press release, Kushner called EA “​an ​extraordinary ​company with a ​world-class ​management ​team and a bold vision ​for ​the ​future.” 

“​I’ve admired their ​ability to create iconic, lasting experiences, ​and ​as ​someone ​who ​grew up playing their ​games—and now enjoys them with his ​kids—I couldn’t be ​more ​excited about ​what’s ​ahead,” said Kushner, who served as a senior advisor to Trump during his first term but is not formally involved in the president’s second administration.

Silver Lake is also no stranger to sports investments. The PE firm’s portfolio includes Endeavor Group, which is the lead shareholder of publicly traded TKO Group—the company that owns UFC and WWE. It is also invested in Madison Square Garden Sports, Diamond Baseball Holdings, and more.

In addition to Madden (it holds exclusive rights to the NFL) and EA Sports College Football, EA makes the FC series, which used to be called FIFA, as well as NHL and F1 games.

Shares of Electronic Arts were nearly 5% higher Monday morning.

The Patriots are selling a total 8% stake in the team to two separate buyers at a more than $9 billion valuation, with private-equity firm Sixth Street buying 3% and Greek American billionaire Dean Metropoulos picking up 5%.

The two minority stake sales value the Patriots at more than $9 billion, two sources familiar with the matter confirmed to Front Office Sports. The deals were first reported by Sports Business Journal. The Patriots later announced the transactions, although they did not include financial details.

One source says Robert Kraft will use proceeds from the stake sales to reinvest in the team.

“The Kraft family remains fully committed to long-term ownership and operational control of the Patriots,” the Patriots said in a statement.

The sales remain subject to league approval, which the Patriots said is expected in October.

The deal with Sixth Street represents the fourth private-equity investment in an NFL team since owners voted 31–1 last summer to approve a policy that allows firms to buy minority stakes (the Bengals were the only team to vote against the policy). Sixth Street’s is the smallest PE stake of the four deals that have happened—Arctos Partners previously purchased 10% stakes in both the Bills and Chargers, while Ares Management acquired a 10% stake in the Dolphins.

Under the NFL policy, 10% is the cap for PE ownership stakes, and if more than one firm wants to buy a stake in the same franchise, their collective stake cannot exceed 10%. Before this season kicked off, a representative for the NFL told FOS that the private-equity policy has been a “tremendous success.”

A representative for Sixth Street declined to comment, and a representative for Metropoulos did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Metropoulos is the founder of Metropoulos & Company, which has previously invested in the likes of Hostess Brands and Pabst Brewing Company.

Sixth Street is among the most prominent PE firms with regard to sports investment. In addition to the Patriots, it owns stakes in the NBA’s Celtics and Spurs, MLB’s Giants, and soccer teams Real Madrid and Barcelona. The firm is also the majority owner of the NWSL’s Bay FC.

The deal leaves the Bruins as the only one of the Boston teams in the four major U.S. men’s pro sports leagues (NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL) that do not have private-equity investors, as first pointed out by Axios’s Dan Primack: Sixth Street is invested in both the Patriots and Celtics, while the Red Sox count RedBird Capital Partners as a minority investor.

The NFL has seen a dizzying amount of minority stake sales lately, and valuations are soaring—under league rules, each team can have up to 24 limited partners.

Last week, the 49ers reportedly sold a 3.2% stake to Pete Briger Jr., managing partner at Fortress Investment Group, and in May the team sold a total 6% stake to a group of three families. Both of those deals valued the team at more than $8.5 billion. In September, the Giants sold a 10% stake to Julia Koch and members of her billionaire family at a reported valuation of more than $10 billion.

The Bears were valued at $8.8 billion in an equity share deal that was reportedly reached in August. Meanwhile, in May the NFL approved the sale of a 0.1% stake in the Browns to Pro Football Hall of Famer Charles Woodson, and the sale of a 1.1% stake in the Dolphins to an undisclosed group of businessmen. Before that, in December, the NFL approved the sale of an 8% stake in the Eagles to two investment groups. Last October, Tom Brady bought a roughly 5% stake in the Raiders.

Editors’ note: RedBird IMI, in which RedBird Capital Partners is a joint venture partner, is the primary investor in Front Office Sports.