It’s been four years since Deadpool star Ryan Reynolds and It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia co-creator Rob McElhenney purchased Wrexham AFC—at the time, a non-league soccer team little-known in the U.S.—and American family offices are still scrambling to grab a piece of sports franchises, according to Anushka Gupta, who leads Apex, the American branch of Goldman Sachs’s family office subsidiary.
While Reynolds and McElhenney found their way to professional sports in 2020 through what was then a fifth-tier soccer team based in Wales, for which they paid $2.5 million, American family offices are looking for entry points among emerging sports, including the Ultimate Fighting Championship, surfing, and women’s sports.
Speaking at the virtual Global Family Office Media Roundtable on Tuesday, Gupta said the interest in these emerging sports is about more than just the growth potential that comes from reaching a larger audience—sponsors are changing how they view these leagues, in addition to potential opportunities involving sports betting. (The Supreme Court overturned a bill restricting sports betting in 2018.)
“There’s a big bucket of emerging sports where the opportunity feels nascent,” said Gupta. “But the bid and demand across groups, in how much excitement and buzz there are on some of these emerging sports, is really a big area of focus.”
The media roundtable followed a symposium with 170 Goldman Sachs clients and prospective clients from 15 countries. Based in part on those meetings, Gupta said that family offices—generally defined as families with at least $50 million to invest—are increasingly interested in sports investments.
In addition to the UFC and surfing, the most popular emerging sports include NASCAR, golf, sailing, rugby, and college sports, with a focus across leagues on women’s sports, Gupta said. Specifically, she mentioned the National Women’s Soccer League, the WNBA, and the Women’s Tennis Association. A number of changes make these investments more enticing, including that women’s sports sponsorships are up 22%, according to a report by Sports United.
Family offices are mostly in the early stages of considering sports investments, evaluating factors such as whether leagues are open to expansion and how they handle media rights. “There’s been a lot of focus on the rapid rise in media contract values,” said Gupta, “which has allowed engagement with a much broader…
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