Private Equity Targets Football: NFL, College Poised for Investments

Slowly but surely, private equity money is making its way into football—at multiple levels.

The NFL remains on track to begin allowing franchises to sell minority ownership stakes to institutional investors by the end of this year. “We believe that would be something that could make sense for us in a limited fashion,” NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said in July. That limit is 10% of any one franchise, which is lower than the threshold set by the NFL’s American counterparts at the NBA, NHL, and MLB, some of which allow private equity firms to hold as much as a 30% stake.

October’s owners meetings in Atlanta have been a loose deadline for when the NFL would like to approve its new private equity investment policy. This week, the league is said to be meeting with major firms like Arctos Partners, the Carlyle Group, Blackstone, CVC Capital Partners, and Dynasty Equity, according to Sportico. 

Supply and Demand

No NFL team is currently up for grabs, but last summer’s $6.05 billion sale of the Commanders seems to have pushed the rest of the league to speed up the process around private equity. “Raising $3 billion is a lot of work,” new Washington owner Josh Harris has since said. Last October, the league formed a new special owners committee that was tasked with evaluating institutional investors.

“The value of the franchises are reaching such levels, the opportunity to have more flexibility to provide financing and keep a family in control without having to sell major blocks of their ownership—there are models that can work,” Falcons owner Arthur Blank (above) told Front Office Sports in February.

Doing Your Homework

U.S. private equity leaders are also targeting college football as a new investment avenue.

The Big 12 is exploring bringing on a private equity partner to help bankroll the conference’s future as it tries to compete financially with heavyweights at the Big Ten and SEC. CVC has had conversations with the Big 12, in addition to its reported upcoming talks with the NFL. That firm has also invested in the WTA, LaLiga, and Premiership Rugby in the U.K.

Last year, Florida State had talks with Sixth Street about the private equity giant investing in the school’s athletic department. This year, RedBird Capital Partners and Weatherford Capital (of which former FSU quarterback Drew Weatherford is a partner) announced the launch of an investment arm, Collegiate Athletic Solutions, intended to infuse up to $200 million into athletic departments.

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