Buying minority stakes in NFL and NBA teams has become a popular play for investors, but former NFL players Terrence C. Murphy Sr. and Reggie Bush are running a different route.
Their new private-equity firm, Synergy Sports Capital, will focus on controlling stakes in emerging sports leagues—which can range from Unrivaled and the NWSL to Major League Pickleball and TGL Golf. The debut fund, Synergy Sports GP I, is looking to raise $150 million from a group of limited partners that’s expected to include wealthy individuals, family offices, other private-equity firms, and athletes.
The duo is in talks with many potential investors, including “athletes who you’d know if I said their names,” Murphy tells Front Office Sports, and some potential LPs have already made “soft commitments.”
The fund will invest at both the team and league level, with plans to develop associated real estate and buy sports-adjacent businesses. It currently has one portfolio company, USL Championship soccer club Atlético Dallas, which was founded in 2024.
“We will be leaders in the lower-middle market space of PE in sports,” Murphy tells FOS. “It’s gonna happen. It’s destined for Reggie and I to lead that pack.”
Synergy was founded by Murphy, a former Texas A&M standout wide receiver who set dozens of school records and was drafted by the Packers in 2005. His playing career was cut short by a neck injury in his rookie season, but he found a new area in which to compete: business. Murphy tells FOS he got into investing at 22 through a deal with Dallas-based PE firm Stillwater Capital.
“They allowed me to invest and I just kind of forced my own internship,” he says. “I started showing up to meetings and going out on site. That’s where I cut my teeth in this space.”
He has since built a personal portfolio that includes real estate and more than 100 companies. Other sports investments include the United Pickleball Association and Third Coast Renegades Angling Club—a team in the Sport Fishing Championship league, the same league Ben Simmons recently bought a team in.
“I consider Terrence my brother,” Bush says. “There’s a lot that I can learn from him, and I feel like there’s also a lot that I can bring to the table.”
Bush, the former USC running back who won the 2005 Heisman Trophy, is a partner at the firm. While it’s not listed on the Synergy website, it sounds like Bush’s upstart golf league for pro athletes—The United Athletes Tour—will likely also fall under the firm’s umbrella.
“What Reggie’s doing with the Athletes Tour fits perfectly,” Murphy says.
Bush, who retired from the NFL in 2017 after 11 seasons, found his new playing field on the golf course. Behind the scenes, he’s been developing his league, which he says will hold its first tour in June in San Diego, although he wouldn’t reveal which course just yet.
“Once I retired, golf became that safe place for me,” Bush tells FOS. “I started to see that there’s a massive community of athletes that love golf. But at the same time, there’s no tour where these guys can actually go compete, earn sponsorships, and prize purses.”
Murphy says he and Bush have become kindred spirits through commonalities like family, sports, and culture—plus their interest in the opportunities that exist with emerging leagues.
“I’m very passionate about working together because I was a lone wolf for so many years,” he says.
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