Private equity and sports: A natural partnership
Key takeaways
- How is private equity changing sports ownership? Institutional investors now hold stakes in 74 North American teams, driven by predictable revenues, rising franchise values, and stable long-term returns.
- Why invest in women’s sports? Women’s leagues represent high-growth potential, with revenues projected to triple by 2030.
- What is driving sports investments now? Media rights stability, fan loyalty, and scarcity of franchises make sports assets uniquely attractive to private equity.
From stadium real estate and data platforms to women’s sports and global media, sport’s expanding ecosystem is creating new avenues for institutional capital to drive growth and professionalization.
When the National Football League (NFL) changed its ownership rules in 2024 to allow private equity firms to acquire minority stakes in franchises, the change reflected the latest step in a transformation that was well underway. By the time the NFL opened its doors to this new cohort of investors, private capital had been active for years across baseball, basketball, hockey, European football, media platforms, stadium development, and sports technology.
Between 2019 and 2024, private equity firms invested more than USD55 billion into sports-related assets, spanning franchises, leagues, media rights platforms, data and technology services, and fan engagement‑businesses.
Today, more than 74 North American professional teams have some level of private equity involvement, reflecting the appeal of rising franchise valuations and demonstrating the growing role of institutional capital in ownership structures once dominated by individuals.
A key driver of this has been the rapid expansion of league-level media revenues, which increasingly underpin team economics. Long‑term broadcast agreements have increased in both value and duration, improving revenue visibility and supporting higher valuations.
Deal flow has expanded alongside the industry. Sports-related M&A remained healthy in 2025, up 19% on 2024, with private equity‑backed transactions accounting for a large share of activity. High-profile transactions, ranging from multibillion-dollar NFL franchise acquisitions to significant investments in trophy brands such as cricket’s Indian Premier League, are no longer exceptions.
From passion asset to institutional investment
For much of the twentieth century, owning a professional sports team was primarily a personal pursuit rather than an investment strategy. Teams were typically acquired by industrialists, real estate magnates, or local business leaders who viewed ownership as a form of civic stewardship, legacy building, or personal passion. Financial discipline mattered, but long-term risk-adjusted returns were rarely the central motivation.
Over the past several decades, the business model underpinning professional sport has been fundamentally reshaped. Media rights have scaled into global, multi-billion dollar enterprises. Sponsorships now span continents, and merchandising has become a worldwide business.
“Sports used to be a trophy asset,” said Lorine Pendleton, Founding Partner of 125 Ventures. “Now it’s a serious business.”
A big driver of the involvement of private institutional capital today is the sheer size of investment needed. Teams increasingly operate as complex, capital-intensive organizations requiring technology and professional management.
This is reflected in valuations. Across the NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball (MLB), and National Hockey League (NHL), average team values now sit in the billions, with combined valuations approaching half a trillion dollars. The average NFL franchise alone is valued at roughly USD7 billion.
“As these valuations rise, the ownership model naturally changes,” said Theo Ajadi, assistant director at Deloitte’s Sports Business Group. “It becomes harder for a single individual or family office to provide liquidity, fund large capital projects, and manage concentration risk on their own.”
In the US, this shift began with baseball. In 2019, MLB became the first major US league to formally permit private equity investment in teams, creating a framework for passive, minority ownership designed to preserve long-term stability.
Today, one-third of MLB teams are backed by private equity, the highest proportion among North American sports leagues, according to PitchBook.
Predictable cash flows – and loyalty
Size is not the only requirement for private institutional investors. Equally important is the quality, stability, and predictability of the underlying asset, particularly as private capital in sports typically operates without control, much ability to restructure, or a public market exit route.
Instead, investors rely on scarcity and long-duration demand – characteristics that professional sports franchises can offer and which are rare even among alternative investments.
Leagues are closed systems with a fixed number of teams. Entry is restricted, and in US leagues relegation risk does not exist.
“Scarcity is hugely important,” said Paul Harris, Deal Advisory Leader for Media and Sports at KPMG. “If you finish last in the NFL, you don’t disappear. You get a draft pick and come back. That stability matters to investors.”
Sports also generate relatively predictable and diversified revenues over a long time. Media rights are typically locked in through multi‑year contracts, often seven to eleven years in length, providing the visibility that underpins league and team cash flows.
Sponsorship revenue adds further stability, with global sports sponsorship projected at USD92 billion in 2025 and to reach USD156 billion by 2032. Ticketing is also resilient: season ticket renewal rates across major leagues commonly exceed 80%, offering reliable recurring income. Beyond game days, modern stadiums and arenas increasingly host concerts, corporate events, and other programming, diversifying revenues and extending asset use well beyond a sporting season.
Most distinctively of all, sports benefit from extraordinary fan loyalty.
“Sport is one of the last forms of content people still plan their lives around,” Harris said. “You don’t watch the Super Bowl on delay. That urgency has enormous value.”
Fans behave differently from consumers in most other industries: poor on‑field performance rarely results in the abandonment of the brand, its tickets or its merchandise, with supporters often maintaining loyalty even through extended losing streaks.
“When you look at sports fans, they are deeply emotional,” said Ajadi. “Even in a cost-of-living crisis, one of the last things many sports fans are keen to give up is their sports subscription or season ticket”
The opportunity beyond team ownership
While minority stakes in teams receive the most attention, they represent only one dimension of private capital involvement in sports.
US league rules deliberately limit control. Private equity investors typically hold noncontrolling positions with restricted voting rights and long holding periods. As a result, many firms have shifted focus toward areas where capital and operational expertise can be applied more actively.
“This is not the classic buyout model,” Pendleton said. “You’re not restructuring the team or replacing management. You’re providing patient capital and aligning with owners who care deeply about the long-term health of the franchise.”
In practice, this has meant shifting attention toward assets that sit around live sport rather than on the field itself. One of the most influential examples has been CVC Capital Partners’ investment in Formula One, which focused on centralizing and scaling the sport’s broadcast, sponsorship, and promotion economics rather than individual teams.
Through longer media rights contracts, global expansion, and tighter commercial coordination, Formula One evolved into a more predictable, institutional-grade cashflow platform.
A similar logic underpinned Silver Lake’s take-private acquisition of Endeavor, a diversified sports and entertainment business whose revenues are driven by long-term contracts, intellectual property, and global distribution. Rather than betting on competitive outcomes, the investment reflects a view that control over talent representation, content production, and rights monetization offers a clearer path to scale and operational leverage than team ownership alone.
Private capital has also moved decisively into sports commerce and licensing infrastructure. Backed by investors including Silver Lake and Fidelity, Fanatics has positioned itself as the primary intermediary between leagues, teams, and fans by controlling licensed merchandise production, e-commerce, and data-driven personalization. The business model is built on exclusive long-term league partnerships and variable cost structures, allowing capital and technology to drive returns independently of any single team’s performance.
Women’s sports and emerging growth
One of the most compelling growth narratives in global sport is the rapid evolution of women’s leagues and competitions. The sector is now benefiting from sustained investment across infrastructure, media, and commercial development.
“We’re still early,” Pendleton said. “Women’s sports have been historically undercapitalized. What we’re seeing now is professionalization.”
This is visible in revenue growth and in the quality of commercial engagement. Deloitte estimates that global revenues from women’s elite sports reached approximately USD2.35 billion in 2025, supported by improved facilities, more sophisticated marketing, expanded media coverage, and evolving sponsorship dynamics. Basketball and football are the largest contributors.
Growth prospects look substantial. McKinsey estimates that women’s sports could generate at least USD2.5 billion in value for rightsholders in the US alone by 2030, representing growth of roughly 250% from 2024 levels.
New leagues illustrate how that potential may translate into investable assets. Canada’s Northern Super League (NSL), the country’s first domestic professional women’s soccer league, is positioning itself for expansion, capitalizing on national visibility tied to the World Cup and partnerships with established sports ownership groups.
“Women’s sports sit on a very different growth curve from mature men’s leagues,” Ajadi said. “That’s where many investors see long-term upside.”
A permanent shift, with constraints
Private capital’s interest in sports is not confined to North America. Investors are increasingly active across top-tier European football leagues such as the English Premier League, Spain’s La Liga, and Germany’s Bundesliga, global racing properties including Formula One and MotoGP, and Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket.
Institutional attention is also extending to professional football and basketball leagues in Latin America, as well as football and basketball competitions across Southeast and East Asia, where large fan bases and comparatively early-stage commercial structures offer scope for scaled growth.
The opportunity comes with constraints. Growth in the value of media rights, one of the sector’s primary economic pillars, may moderate as broadcast markets mature and competition for rights becomes more disciplined.
At the same time, player compensation and transfer costs remain volatile and can outpace underlying revenue growth. As leagues and teams expand into new geographies, they also encounter more complex regulatory environments, governance differences, and political risk. Concerns about over-commercialization persist as well, particularly where aggressive monetization strategies risk weakening the emotional bond between fans and their teams.
Even so, few observers expect institutional capital to retreat. “Private capital is attracted not just by returns but by the opportunity to professionalize operations, expand globally, and apply disciplines that have worked in other industries,” said Ajadi.
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