KKR’s $1.4 billion purchase of Arctos, which owns stakes in more than two dozen professional sports teams, removes all doubt: sports investing is going pro. The sale gives Arctos, which helped pioneer the business of buying stakes in sports teams, deeper pockets as franchise prices continue to soar and leagues themselves flirt with taking outside money.
“I used to joke that a minority stake in a sports team was like really, really, really expensive season tickets, and it’s now an investment,” Gregg Lemkau, co-CEO of BDT & MSD Partners, which advised on the recent sales of the Boston Celtics and Philadelphia Eagles, said at Semafor’s The Ledger finance summit in December.
Big law firms are also jumping in downstream: The companies’ press release this morning noted Kirkland & Ellis served as “sports counsel” to KKR, which had separate deal lawyers from Simpson Thacher & Bartlett.