When the biggest sports deals in the world happen, teams' buyers are typically the ones in the headlines.
Whispering in the ears of the billionaires and celebrities doing the buying, however, are investment bankers. Whether it's an ex-CEO buying an NBA team or a European soccer club owner looking to sell their stakes, financial experts who specialize in negotiating and valuation have an enormous impact on what goes down.
In the past, sports banking was the domain of tech and media bankers. But as investment in the sector has grown, industry leaders like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan have launched specialized sports investment banking groups to deal with the boom in business.
Business Insider spoke to sports rainmakers at firms like Goldman Sachs, The Raine Group, and PJT Partners who have been behind multibillion-dollar transactions involving teams like Chelsea FC and the Baltimore Orioles. They talked to BI about why the niche sector differs from coverage in other areas of M&A, including the challenges of working in an industry beloved by so many people and other unique pressures — and perks — of working as a sports banker.
Famous clientele
If you get to talking with a healthcare banker about their latest biopharma deal, your eyes might glaze over. Sports bankers don't have that problem.
Greg Carey, a managing director in sports banking and chairman of public finance at Goldman Sachs, has found that no matter a person's background or professional expertise, everyone's interested, on some level, in sports. At work dinners, it's a topic that's on everyone's lips in a way that other industries aren't, said Carey, whose team has worked with Endeavor, owner of the Ultimate Fighting Championship and WWE.
Clients will "talk about their business, and they'll talk sports, and it's top of mind for everyone," Carey said.
Working as a sports banker can mean rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous. In Colin Neville's 15 years at The Raine Group, he's worked with the likes of soccer superstar David Beckham, ex-Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, and Alibaba cofounder Joe Tsai. He helped find an investor for Beckham's InterMiami soccer team in 2018, advised Ballmer on his 2014 purchase of the Los Angeles Clippers, and Tsai on his $3.3 billion acquisition of the Brooklyn Nets and Barclays Center in 2019.
But with all the fun comes a lot of responsibility, and Neville's advice to people interested in sports M&A coverage is that they get into it for the right reasons.
"It's an attractive industry, in the same way people get excited about other industries that are high profile," Neville said. "But at the end of the day, it's a business. And to be good at business means hard work, and long hours, and putting in all the effort. So, while there's a lot of the glitz and glamor, there is a lot of hard work that goes into it."
BI reporters who spoke to these bankers found that they often had a certain charm and approachability that stood out. Many of them are former athletes, have interesting hobbies, or just have the type of personality that makes you feel you could grab a beer with them.
Take Andrew Kline, who founded the sports-focused investment bank Park Lane in Los Angeles in 2004. Kline was an offensive lineman for the St. Louis Rams (now the Los Angeles Rams) in the early 2000s, and in his free time plays in a blues band and surfs. Kline declined to discuss deals, but his website says the firm has advised franchises like the Golden State Warriors and the Miami Heat.
When Carey was an undergrad at Harvard in 1981, he played in the US Rugby National Championship. His team was the reigning champion, but they lost 6-3 in overtime to Cal-Berkeley. Like other sports bankers BI interviewed for our list of top sports bankers, he exemplified a good-humored, approachable attitude, including joking about his many sports allegiances.
"Earlier in my career, I made the mistake of telling Bob Kraft that I was a New York Jets fan," Carey told BI recently. "My wife immediately kicked me under the table. I am now proudly a rabid Patriots fan. I'm also a Giants fan, a Rays fan, an A's, Barcelona and Chelsea fan. I love all my clients and honestly feel like I have the best job in the world."
Unique pressures
Of course, investment banking is hard work, and sports bankers face their own set of challenges. For example, the increase in wealthy people looking to invest in sports can create competitive pressures due to a largely static number of sports teams available to purchase.
"Sports are about supply and demand," said Kline. "If someone wants a specific team, they might only have one chance in their lifetime to acquire it — which means they need to be very prepared for the process and price to get that done. This creates a very unique and competitive environment that makes it fun and challenging when you are advising on the buyside and/or sell side."
Sports bankers also have to understand sometimes arcane league rules, said Robert Tilliss, founder of sports-focused investment bank Inner Circle Sports, which has advised the Atlanta Hawks NBA team and the New York Mets MBA team. For example, the NFL only allows individuals to invest in its teams. There's been a push to allow private-equity funds and other institutional investors to invest. Any such move will likely come with strict guidelines, like passive stakes only and a list of preapproved investors, experts say.
And when English soccer's Premier League ordered Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich to stop running its Chelsea football club, it gave him just 28 days to relinquish control, according to news reports.
In the end, Neville and his team had all of 90 days to help find a buyer for the team because the British government had a say in the sales process after imposing sanctions on Abramovich over his ties to Vladimir Putin following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The period was the most intense of his career, Neville told BI. The club would be shut down if they couldn't meet the deadline.
"Chelsea is hopefully a singular and unique experience in my life," he said. "It was around the clock in every single time zone, and we basically barely had a chance to breathe during that process."
Neville's team landed a deal to sell the team for $3.2 billion to Todd Boehly, a co-owner of the LA Dodgers and former banker. It was the most money paid for any sports team in history at the time.
"Everyone was uncertain — the staff was uncertain, the players were uncertain, the fans were freaking out. The press in the UK around football is like nothing you'll ever experience. So it was just a high-pressure situation with big stakes, and we wanted to do right by all the different stakeholders. So we did our best on that. We're pretty proud of the outcome."
It's an emotional sector
Sports bankers must also be aware that sports are intensely personal to millions of people, explained PJT partner Joe Lenehan, who most recently advised on Michael Arougheti and David Rubenstein's $1.7 billion investment in the Baltimore Orioles. As a result, a new owner doesn't just answer to the players and the employees but also to leagues, fans, and other members of what might be considered the community behind the sport.
"They're very personal businesses, and these are assets that are uniquely both privately and civically owned to some extent. Whether the equity is actually owned by the local community or not, there's a part of these clubs and institutions that are owned by the fans in some way, shape, or form," said Lenehan. "For example, when people want to buy a new club, these potential owners have to convince a league that they are willing to invest in that club appropriately."
On the flip side, fans' personal feelings for these teams — win or lose — contribute to their enduring value.
"I don't know what the next TikTok or Instagram is going to be. It's hard to predict that," Neville told BI. "But I do know that the Yankees will play baseball in 50 years, and people will go to Manchester United games. So in terms of the staying power of the content and the IP, it's a really good place to allocate capital."
Neville knows from experience. He roots for the New York Jets — despite their performance during his lifetime. The reason is a familiar story for many sports fans: because it's the team he grew up watching with his dad as a New York native. Now that he has three young children of his own, they carry on the tradition.
"This is the beauty of sports. It's hard to really create an analogy for it," he said. "My two boys are 7 and 5. They're obsessive Jets fans, and they're just fans because I'm a Jets fan," Neville told BI. "I remember having this conversation with my wife where she was like, 'Maybe we should switch to the Giants because they win.' And I was like, 'That's sacrilegious, you can't do that.' So that's why we'll be Jets fans forever."
