Valued at £9 billion, the "sports - version LVMH" created by CVC has launched a financing round.

In recent years, those who follow sports industry news must have noticed the "frenzy" in the global professional sports investment market. The most obvious sign is that from Europe to North America, the valuations of professional sports teams have skyrocketed, repeatedly setting new records for transaction prices. This phenomenon is particularly striking against the backdrop of the current slowdown in global economic growth.

The investment boom in sports assets is partly due to the enduring appeal of professional sports. Top - tier clubs and event IPs naturally have value - preservation functions. On the other hand, it is also related to the fact that professional sports leagues, represented by the four major North American leagues, have lifted investment restrictions on private equity investment funds. With the opening of the investment door, a large amount of capital has entered the market, promoting the securitization of sports assets, which in turn has further accelerated the investment in the sports industry.

The prices of sports assets have risen wildly, significantly outpacing the S&P 500 index.

It's not just a hot overall environment. The investment in professional sports teams also shows a strong characteristic of collectivization. More and more capital is making global investments, building sports investment portfolios covering different countries or regions. Some have invested in professional football teams in different national leagues, some in sports teams of different sports in different countries, and some have even invested in the IP parties of professional sports leagues for different sports.

Group - based sports investment, represented by multi - club ownership, is becoming popular.

Ultimately, investment is about returns. Amid the hot atmosphere, high valuations, and extensive layouts, how to operate these assets well and ultimately achieve expected or even excessive returns has become the core issue that the entire sports investment market is concerned about and thinking about.

Recently, a piece of news about European private equity investment giant CVC Capital Partners (hereinafter referred to as CVC) has become the top story in the global sports industry and investment field. CVC is integrating all its sports assets into a new company called SportsCo and is launching a financing round with a valuation of £9 billion for the latter. For this purpose, CVC has entrusted three global financial institutions, Goldman Sachs, PJT Partners, and Raine Group, to lead the plan.

CVC is a veteran sports investment institution. It has not only invested in sports for a long time and on a large scale but also has extremely successful cases, such as making billions of dollars in net profit from investing in F1.

CVC's latest attempt may bring some new ideas to answer the above - mentioned questions.

The operation of assets under SportsCo varies

CVC was founded in 1981. At the beginning, it was the European branch of the venture capital department under Citigroup. Later, it was acquired, forming CVC Capital.

CVC's sports investment can be traced back to its investment in the MotoGP in 1998. CVC's most talked - about investment is F1. In 2006, it carried out a leveraged buyout of the F1 series of events at a price of $2 billion and sold it to Liberty Media for $8 billion ten years later.

Its current investment portfolio covering different sports such as football, tennis, rugby, cricket, and volleyball began in 2018.

In terms of asset composition, SportsCo has gathered CVC's core assets invested in over the past decade, including:

• An 8.25% share of the TV broadcast rights of LaLiga for the next 50 years starting from 2021;

• A 13% stake in the Ligue de Football Professionnel (LFP) and a 14.3% stake in the Six Nations Rugby;

• A 27% stake in Premiership Rugby;

• A 28% stake in the United Rugby Championship;

• Approximately a 33% stake in Volleyball World, the commercial subsidiary of the Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB);

• A 20% stake in WTA Ventures, a joint - venture company established by CVC and the Women's Tennis Association (WTA), and a 33% stake in the Gujarat Titans, a club in the Indian Premier League (IPL).

Currently, the operation of these sports assets varies. The well - performing IPs are in the rugby and volleyball sectors, such as Premiership Rugby. According to Sky Sports, since CVC's investment, the season sponsorship revenue of Premiership Rugby has doubled to €220 million, and the number of core fans in the 18 - 34 age group increased by 30% in 2024, and the number of TV viewers increased by 40% in 2025.

Another example is the Six Nations Rugby. The event has achieved revenue growth through a new competition format and joint brand marketing. According to the official disclosure of the event, the sponsorship revenue reached €210 million in 2024, a year - on - year increase of 95%, and the number of TV viewers increased by 38%.

The performance of Volleyball World is also remarkable. According to the official disclosure of the event, in 2023, the sponsorship value of the Volleyball Nations League (VNL) alone increased by 27%, the TV ratings increased by 13% to 630 million person - times, and the number of people reached on social media platforms also reached 214 million. In 2024, the number of subscribers to Volleyball TV doubled to 1.2 million. This is due to CVC's active expansion of online marketing channels and precise layout in emerging markets.

Of course, the operation of some assets is not optimistic. Among them, the bidding price for the 2024 - 2028 copyright cycle of Ligue 1 was lower than expected, forcing the league to accelerate the promotion of its direct - to - consumer (DTC) service, which will be launched in 2026. As early as the end of March 2020, Canal+, one of the two major broadcasters of Ligue 1, announced that it would not pay the last installment of the Ligue 1 broadcast copyright fee in April, resulting in a loss of up to €110 million for the latter. If the revenue of Ligue 1 drops by another 10%, its debt covenants will be tightened.

Overall, one of the reasons why the operation of some assets fails to meet expectations is the excessive reliance on traditional media. According to a report by Nielsen, a media audience insight and data analysis company, from May 2021 to May 2025, streaming media has become the main form of viewing, with its usage increasing by 71%. At the same time, the usage of broadcast TV and cable TV decreased by 21% and 39% respectively.

In addition, insufficient localization is also a key issue. According to a report by Brand Finance, the brand value of the Gujarat Titans in the Indian Premier League invested by CVC increased by 38% in 2023, and its brand ranking jumped from eighth to fifth. However, it is still far behind the Mumbai Indians, which ranks first in brand value. The sponsorship structure of the latter is dominated by local enterprises, while the Gujarat Titans rely too much on its parent company (the Adani Group in India) in commercial development and fails to effectively expand sponsorship from local small and medium - sized enterprises. This shows that in different markets, localized operation and tapping local business potential are equally important.

Among the above - mentioned projects, Ligue 1 and the Indian Premier League are relatively large - scale assets. The poor operation of large projects inevitably requires changes. Of course, this is not the only reason for CVC to integrate its sports investment portfolio.

How to operate and finance after the establishment of SportsCo?

Carlo De Marchis, a business consultant with 35 years of experience in sports media and technology and a graduate of Harvard Business School, revealed on the LinkedIn platform that by 2025, CVC's shares in all projects were scattered across five different funds, and the exit deadlines of these funds are different. At the same time, after two years of significant tightening, global interest rates began to decline, which has generated new interest in the debt market for predictable cash flows such as long - term media copyrights. Therefore, CVC took advantage of the situation and announced the establishment of "SportsCo": a platform - type investment tool.

By including these sports assets in the same balance sheet, SportsCo can conduct debt financing, providing CVC with lower - cost, asset - backed debt funds and paving the way for introducing minority equity investors or going public in the future, without affecting the daily governance of each sports league. The Carlo De Marchis team speculates that CVC may conduct a debt financing round of more than £2 billion. If successful, this will be the largest single - capital restructuring in the history of sports finance.

In Carlo De Marchis' view, after integrating these assets, SportsCo's operation logic will revolve around the following points:

• The "one entity, multiple participants" model. Simply put, each sports asset will continue to operate independently, while SportsCo will provide shared services such as data analysis, sponsorship recruitment, and fan interaction tools.

• Adopt the strategy of "debt financing first, equity financing later". By raising long - term debt for SportsCo, investors in the eighth fund that invested in these sports assets earlier can get back part of their funds in advance, which eases the pressure on private equity funds to redeem before maturity. At the same time, by holding the core equity, it reserves room for an IPO around 2028.

• Emphasize "synergy rather than homogenization", that is, to achieve resource sharing among assets and imitate successful business operation methods from each other to improve overall operation efficiency and market competitiveness and reduce the risk of individual assets. CVC has previously given an example: Bundling rugby audiences with the young female fan group of the WTA will have a greater effect on diversifying income risks than weakening brand recognition.

In CVC's current investment portfolio, the earlier investments were made between 2018 and 2021. Its flagship fund must realize returns as soon as possible. Refinancing needs to meet four conditions: partial cash - out without giving up equity - a typical GP - led continuation strategy; stricter governance - a single board of directors can enforce business discipline and cross - sell sponsorship inventory; a financing plan - the realized returns will help promote CVC's ninth - phase fund and the rumored subsequent sports funds; risk - sharing - the co - existence of lagging assets (Premiership Rugby) and high - growth assets (WTA Ventures) can ease volatility for lenders.

Sky Sports compares CVC's move to create SportsCo to the business model implemented by French luxury giant LVMH. The latter, while respecting the uniqueness and independence of its more than 75 well - known and excellent brands, uses the overall advantages of the group to create intelligent synergy effects through resource sharing, ensuring that each brand can benefit from it.

This move is also similar to the practice of the Team Business Operations department under the National Basketball Association (NBA). The league shares the successful operation experience of individual teams within the league. Based on this, the league can break through the limitations of individual teams, explore collective development opportunities, and promote the implementation of more long - term growth projects.

It should be emphasized that the expected benefits of the SportsCo strategy include two aspects: First, it is expected to discover more new investment opportunities in the next few years; second, CVC may hold the equity of its existing asset portfolio for a longer time.

CVC was listed on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange in 2024.

Along with the establishment of SportsCo, CVC is also recruiting talent. Currently, a known key move is to invite Marc Allera to serve as the executive chairman of SportsCo. Allera was born on April 5, 1972, in Howden, UK. He graduated from Sheffield Hallam University with a degree in international business studies. He has worked for Sega, Three UK (as marketing director), EE (as CEO), and the consumer department of BT Group (as CEO).

Allera is not a traditional sports executive. He has rich experience in the telecommunications and streaming media fields. He successfully transformed EE into the first 5G service provider in the UK to enter the public eye and included BT's sports channels in broadband packages. In addition, during his tenure at BT, he led the sports joint - venture between BT and Warner Bros. Discovery. After leaving BT Group on March 31, 2025, he became the executive chairman of SportsCo in June.

Actually, CVC has had a connection with Marc Allera for some time. Last year, he served as the chairman of JagEx, a mobile game company acquired by CVC, and was also a general consultant for this private equity giant. After joining SportsCo, he will coordinate CVC's sports asset portfolio, be responsible for integrating fragmented digital strategies, use the mature customer relationship management model in the telecommunications industry to increase the average revenue per user, and actively seek the support of core investors to pave the way for the company's future initial public offering (IPO). It is expected that CVC will recruit other executives to assist Allera in the future.

Marc Allera has assumed the position of executive chairman of SportsCo.

What inspiration does the establishment of SportsCo have for sports investment?

In the view of consultant Carlo De Marchis, the emergence of SportsCo indicates that the sports industry will undergo three major changes, and these changes have been quickly noticed by copyright holders, competitors, and other investors.

First, the sports industry is redefined as an infrastructure - type asset, that is, by integrating stable cash flows such as season tickets, a unified value carrier is formed. This model has successfully attracted capital from insurance companies, pension funds, etc., which traditionally avoid the economic fluctuations of sports leagues. This type of capital originally preferred stable and predictable returns.

Second, by using platform - based thinking to integrate customer relationship management (CRM) systems and dynamic advertising technology, SportsCo can increase the average revenue per user of multiple sports projects faster than any single league. That is, by more precisely managing user data and more flexibly adjusting advertising strategies, each user can generate higher returns for sports projects.