Private-equity-backed Arcis Golf, the second-largest golf course operator in the U.S., has been on a buying spree lately, with more than 18 acquisitions in the last three years, including three courses in Georgia purchased this week. The Dallas-based company now owns 70 courses and has an enterprise value of $2 billion.
Dallas-based Arcis Golf, the second-largest golf course operator in the U.S., has built a portfolio of 70 courses and reached an enterprise valuation of $2 billion. It only exists due to the support of the founder’s wife over a decade ago, who encouraged him to leave the country’s biggest course operator and take a swing at his own venture.
Blake Walker was sitting in a meeting at his prior employer, ClubCorp—the top golf course operator in the U.S., which in 2022 rebranded to become Invited—when he had an epiphany. The discussion in the meeting centered on the game of golf and the importance of aging baby boomers to its growth.
“I thought, ‘What’s going to happen when they age out?’” he tells Front Office Sports. “I literally went home and told my wife, ‘Look, I’ve got this idea.’ I wanted to leave [ClubCorp], eviscerate all my equity with this firm and create a start-up.”
His wife’s reaction? “She said, thankfully, ‘I think that’s a good idea.’ You can question her logic at the time, and there was part of me that wanted her to say no. But she was supportive, and so I did it.”
Walker left ClubCorp—where he served as chief acquisitions and development officer—to launch Arcis in 2013. He didn’t take a salary for the first six years. Over time, through strategic acquisitions, Arcis grew. Today, Arcis is backed by private-equity firms Atairos and Fortress Investment Group. Its enterprise value (which includes debt), is about $2 billion, according to a source familiar with the company.
Its portfolio has been growing: The company has been on a buying spree lately, with more than 18 acquisitions in the last three years. Last month, it bought the Woodlands Country Club near Houston, and pledged to invest more than $30 million in updates and improvements. The Woodlands includes five golf courses, three of which were designed by legendary golfer Arnold Palmer. It’s the current host of the PGA Tour Champions Insperity Invitational—and will be until 2030. The 2025 Insperity Invitational, with a purse of $3 million, took place in early May and was won by Stewart Cink.
More recently, on Wednesday, Arcis announced the acquisition of three clubs in Georgia: The Country Club of the South in Johns Creek, The Manor Golf & Country Club in Alpharetta, and White Columns Country Club in Milton. Arcis intends to invest “significant capital” in course enhancements and lifestyle amenities, although it did not specify the amount it will invest. In total, Arcis owns 70 clubs across 13 states, including private and daily-fee clubs.
Its portfolio of 70 golf courses includes the only NFL-themed course in the world—Cowboys Golf Club in Grapevine, Texas—which features Cowboys memorabilia on display, including Tom Landry’s famous fedora, Super Bowl trophies and more.
Walker says Arcis is in the midst of transforming Cowboys Golf Club, including the addition of a driving range that will look like the Cowboys’ football field, complete with a goal post, as well as a putting green that will also be Cowboys-themed. The putting green is expected to debut in October, he says.
“They’ve been great partners,” Dallas Cowboys spokesperson Tad Carper tells FOS.
From day 1, Walker knew Arcis needed to differentiate itself by focusing on making the sport accessible, including to groups like women, people of color, and youths.
“We’ve been very intentional in terms of growing the game with overlooked populations,” Walker says.
To that end, Arcis has sought to “reinvent the modern club experience.” Its courses offer fitness classes, fine dining, and other sports (like tennis and swimming).
“It’s a family-centric lifestyle thesis,” Walker tells FOS. “We’re thinking about hour-by-hour, what every member of the family will do, how they will utilize the club differently.”
Golf participation has indeed been on the rise, including in the populations outlined by Walker. As of the end of 2024, of the 28.1 million Americans who played on a course that year, 28% were female and 25% were Black, Asian or Hispanic, according to the National Golf Foundation—both of those last two numbers represent the highest proportions ever recorded.
Shaquille O’Neal’s $1.8 million settlement over his promotion of fallen crypto exchange FTX might wind up being a great deal. Remaining athletes and celebrities in the litigation—including Tom Brady, Steph Curry, and David Ortiz—could still be on the hook for billions in total damages.
The NBA legend this week agreed to pay $1.8 million to settle claims against him in a suit over the collapse of FTX. That’s over $1 million more than the roughly $750,000 O’Neal was paid to promote FTX. It was already known he was settling. O’Neal and FTX investors announced in April they had reached a deal; the terms were disclosed in a legal filing Monday.
The $1.8 million settlement is not chump change, although the actual payout to class members may be meager. Court documents state the class could include more than a million people, meaning that—without taking into account attorneys’ fees and other costs—individual payouts could be as little as less than $2 per class member.
O’Neal might think twice before signing up to promote his next crypto or NFT (non-fungible token) project (he paid $11 million in November to settle a suit over allegations he promoted but then fled an NFT project, Astrals, which caused its value to drop dramatically). But the decision to settle the FTX claims actually represents a big win for O’Neal, according to Adam Moskowitz, an attorney for the FTX investors.
Moskowitz tells Front Office Sports the FTX settlement was only reached due to a relationship built with the attorneys who represented O’Neal in the Astrals case, who later came to represent the former NBA big man in the FTX suit.
After O’Neal’s FTX settlement was reached in late April, the judge in the case—which encompasses multiple lawsuits that were filed in various jurisdictions that were consolidated into one sprawling lawsuit in Florida federal court—issued an order in early May that dismissed many of the claims against celebrity and athlete endorsers. But there remain a few key claims that are still being argued, including one under Florida state law that prohibits the selling of unregistered securities.
“Shaq got in right under the wire a few days before that order came out,” Moskowitz tells FOS. “We gave him a good deal because it was before the order came out. He basically refunded what he was paid.”
Other athletes, celebrities, and well-known entities ensnared in the case—which was originally filed in November 2022—include Brady, Curry, and Ortiz; Brady’s ex-wife, supermodel Gisele Bündchen; MLB star Shohei Ohtani; former NBA player Udonis Haslem; professional tennis player Naomi Osaka; comedian Larry David; and Major League Baseball. According to Moskowitz, their decision to fight the case in court could cost them billions.
“Other celebrities wouldn’t even sit down with us,” Moskowitz says.
An amended complaint of more than 500 pages from the FTX investors, filed May 28, argues that celebrity and athlete endorsers cannot hide from the allegations, and decries the argument that they were merely endorsing a product but didn’t know the risks.
“Many were explicitly warned about the legal risks but continued soliciting sales to the public for their own financial benefit,” the amended complaint says.
The amounts that some athletes and celebrities were paid for their roles promoting FTX were disclosed in separate bankruptcy litigation. The ways in which athletes and celebrities promoted FTX varied, including roles in television ads, posts on social media, and general encouragement during public appearances that FTX was a safe and reliable exchange.
In addition to the nearly $750,000 O’Neal was paid, Ortiz received almost $271,000 and Osaka netted more than $308,000. Truly big money was paid to Brady and Curry (they reportedly received $55 million and $35 million, respectively).
That’s a lot of money, but it pales in comparison to the total damages that could be coming if the case goes all the way to trial and the FTX investors win. According to the amended complaint, damages are expected to exceed “tens of billions of dollars.”
The downfall of FTX was sudden and dramatic. In the fall of 2022, the cryptocurrency exchange collapsed following revelations that its founder and CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried, had misused billions of dollars of customer funds. The scandal resulted in FTX filing for bankruptcy and Bankman-Fried being arrested and convicted on multiple counts of fraud and conspiracy. Last year, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Representatives for O’Neal and Ohtani declined to comment. Attorneys for the other athletes and celebrities who remain as defendants did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Citi Bankers Break Down the Rise of Sports As an Asset Class
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Sports investment has turned from a passion project to asset class in recent years. The financial evolution is moving at a rapid pace, with franchise valuations skyrocketing, ownership structures shifting, and new leagues emerging—from women’s soccer to start-up combat sports.
Behind the headlines is a nuanced story about supply, demand, risk, and return. To make sense of it all, Front Office Sports spoke to two executives in the sports industry group at Citi—John Hutcheson and Ivo Voynov, who lead Citi’s sports advisory and financing group—which has worked on all kinds of deals, from advising the NHL amid the Diamond Sports bankruptcy to counseling the Pittsburgh Penguins on their sale to Fenway Sports Group and guiding the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia on its acquisition of Newcastle United.
They broke down why valuations are soaring, how pandemic-era resilience showed the staying power of sports, and more.
Front Office Sports: What’s going on with the rise in pro franchise valuations? Why are they hitting such insane heights? Why now?
John Hutcheson: Sports is an area that’s near and dear and tangible to investors, which means there’s also been a level of focus and familiarity with it. The other piece is that the owners of sports assets have the potential to do really well from a financial perspective. Many ownership groups had largely been sort of “mom and pop” that were successful business owners who then transitioned to team ownership. And then over time those sports franchises became a significant proportion of their overall wealth. So many have done really well, and money often follows success.
If you look at team valuations in recent years, they’ve mostly been up and to the right. It’s a combination of fundamental business performance, including growing revenues on the back of media-rights renewals and hospitality and sponsorship sales. It’s a supply/demand equation. There have been more billionaires created over the past 10 years than there were the prior 20, inflation-adjusted. So you have a supply/demand imbalance that’s also driving it.
Ivo Voynov: In terms of your question on timing—why now?—I think [the COVID-19 pandemic] also had a lot to do with it. It was such an impactful event, and sports was one of the sectors most affected. You had no fans in the stands, yet no team went through bankruptcy; no league was downgraded from investment grade. In fact, quite the opposite. You saw record valuations, for example, with the Mets in 2020. Then the Broncos, then the Suns, Commanders. All these deals were done at new all-time highs in the middle of, or immediately after, what was supposed to be this huge disruption. The sector showed it was able to sustain, and I think that opened up broader investor appetite.
FOS: Not only are valuations on the rise, but new leagues keep popping up. Is it all the same capital being poured into sports?
JH: It’s a question that comes up frequently: Are we in a period of peak sports? People raise it because you’re seeing all these leagues pop up. There’s three women’s volleyball leagues, and there are multiple MMA leagues. I think if you take a step back, this is the North Star. There’s huge value if you get the league right and you’re able to create your own, wholly owned league while owning and controlling it top to bottom. Look at Formula One and UFC.
There’s a natural gravitation to try things again that previously worked, to find the next area where you can create something that’s so successful where you own the IP. So that’s the North Star I think many investors are chasing. There are very few of scale, and it’s rare to get there. There are maybe five or six such leagues that are meaningful in size. So if you get there, you’ve really climbed the mountain.
To read Ben Horney’s full interview with Citi’s John Hutcheson and Ivo Voynov, click here.
Deal Flow
NFL Raises Stakes
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The NFL increased its equity stake in publicly traded data company Genius Sports as part of a two-year contract extension announced Wednesday that stretches into early 2030 and will make the league the company’s largest shareholder with a roughly 8.7% stake. The agreement calls for the NFL to gain an additional 9.5 million stock warrants. The league’s total equity stake, including warrants obtained in the duo’s original deal from 2021, is worth around $230 million.
A pro jiujitsu league called the Professional Grappling Federation said Wednesday that it has sold its first franchise, the New Hope Kings, in a “seven-figure deal.” The upcoming PGF season will be an expanded 12 weeks long (previous seasons were condensed into a week) and will feature a new team-based model. There will be four “founding” franchises, including the New Hope Kings. The upcoming season begins July 23, and fights will be available through video-streaming service UFC Fight Pass.
U.S. track star Noah Lyles and Box to Box Films launched a production company called Iconic Productions, they announced Thursday. The joint venture will be a “platform for original storytelling.” Lyles, an Olympic gold medalist and six-time world champion sprinter, said in the press release that the content produced by Iconic Productions is “an amazing opportunity to put athletes’ ideas and passions to the forefront.” Box to Box is the business behind Netflix docuseries Formula 1: Drive to Survive, Amazon Prime Video’s Faceoff: Inside the NHL, and more.
Rumor Wire
What We’re Hearing
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The former owners of the NHL’s Penguins—team legend Mario Lemieux and American businessmen Ron Burkle and David Morehouse—are reportedly interested in buying the team back from Fenway Sports Group, according to TSN. The trio sold the Penguins to FSG in 2021 for a reported $900 million; the franchise currently carries an estimated valuation of $1.75 billion, per Forbes. FSG issued a statement to Front Office Sports saying the group is currently exploring the sale of a minority stake in the team, and that the “focus is on identifying a small, passive partner. That is the current framework under discussion with potential investors.”
Famous faces, including NBA star Jimmy Butler and New York Jets owner Woody Johnson, have reportedly shown interest in buying the 43% stake in Premier League team Crystal Palace currently owned by Eagle Football Holdings, according to The Athletic. A group featuring Butler is reportedly expected to make an offer worth more than $200 million, while Johnson has separately expressed interest but hasn’t met the asking price. This all comes against the backdrop that John Textor, Eagle Football’s top shareholder, is facing a dilemma. He owns Crystal Palace and Olympique Lyonnais, both of which qualified to play in the next UEFA Europa League season. Under UEFA rules, no single person can have “control of influence” over more than one club playing in a UEFA club competition. Crystal Palace did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and representatives for Butler and Johnson could not immediately be reached.
The Chicago Bears may be shopping the minority stake that was owned by the late Chicago businessman Andrew McKenna Sr., who passed away in 2023, according to Bloomberg. It’s not clear how big that stake is or the price the team might be seeking. The Bears have an estimated total value of $6.4 billion, according to Forbes. Galatioto Sports Partners has reportedly been hired to handle the sale process. The Bears and Galatioto Sports Partners did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Bears longtime owner Virginia Halas McCaskey, who took over the Bears following the death of her father, George Halas, passed away in February.
