(AFP) – National Football League (NFL) owners on Tuesday voted to allow private equity investment in a landmark move that could see billions of dollars in new funding pumped into the sport, the US-based league confirmed. At a meeting in Milwaukee, the owners of the NFL’s 32 teams gave the green light to a plan that would allow a group of hand-picked private equity firms to purchase up to a 10-percent stake in a team.
Tuesday’s vote represents a significant departure for the way NFL teams are funded. Historically, franchises have been run as family businesses or owned by wealthy individuals. The move to allow private equity investment potentially puts billions of dollars of new cash on the table to help pay for new stadiums and other projects for the most popular sport in the United States.
According to NFL documents setting out the parameters of the new funding deal, private equity firms can now purchase up to a 10-percent stake in a team and must retain that investment for a minimum of six years. The NFL has approved three private equity firms, Arctos Partners, Ares Management and Sixth Street, as well as a consortium consisting of Blackstone, Carlyle, CVC, Dynasty Equity and Ludis, as the companies allowed to invest in the NFL.
The decision brings the NFL into line with other US professional sports leagues, as well as some of the world’s most iconic soccer teams. Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League allow up to 30 percent of teams to be owned by investment firms. Sixth Street has already invested in Spanish giants Real Madrid’s new stadium and also owns a stake in the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs. Another of the approved NFL investors, Dynasty Equity, owns a stake in English football giants Liverpool.
However, while the change to the NFL’s funding structure marks a departure from the past, US reports have said the NFL will not allow sovereign wealth funds — such as Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund worth around $925 million — to invest in its teams. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell had signalled in July that the league was poised to embrace private equity investment.
“As sports evolve, we want to make sure our policies reflect that,” Goodell told CNBC. “We’ve had a tremendous amount of interest [from private equity firms], and we believe this could make sense for us in a limited fashion, probably no more than 10 percent of a team. That would be something we think could complement our ownership and support our ownership policies.”
NFL teams are some of the most valuable sports franchises in the world, with the Dallas Cowboys worth an estimated $10 billion, according to the Sportico sports business news website. The value of NFL teams reflects the league’s dominance of the US sporting landscape, where it remains by far the most watched professional league in the United States. In 2021, the league signed an astonishing $110 billion media rights deal spanning 11 years — almost double the value of its previous media deal. According to Statista, 93 of the top 100 most-watched US television broadcasts in 2023 were NFL games.
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