Investing in Sports - Fountain Edition

Investing in Sports - What I learned investing in a Sports Team

Our family got our dream World Series matchup this week. Blue Jays got to the World Series and are facing the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Now the Dodgers lead 2-1 after an INSANE 18 inning game last night.

Ria and I are going to game 4 in person - channeling Blue Jays energy.

This week is about sports.

The games, the money, the culture, and the opportunities that sit around the edges. This is a fun one and basically some big ideas you can run with, let’s get into it.

⏳️ Estimated Read Time: 5 minutes

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I have invested in both Public and Private Sports Investments.

Public

There are public market angles to simply invest into sports. You can buy shares of the Atlanta Braves, through the tickers. The two main tickers for the Liberty Braves Group are BATRA (Series A) and BATRK (Series C). A third ticker, BATRB, is also available for Series B shares, but these trade on the OTC Markets, while the other two trade on the Nasdaq.

You can buy a company like Madison Square Garden that holds the arena and the team. There are European equivalents. None of this is advice. The two main stock tickers for Madison Square Garden are MSGE for Madison Square Garden Entertainment Corp. and MSGS for Madison Square Garden Sports Corp. These tickers represent different, but related, public companies that were spun off from the original company.

Kathy Wood just made a Sports Move

Ares Private Sports - I attended an event with the LAFC this year and PE entering the NFL.

Private

I made a private investment in an American Hockey League Team, and recently sold the position with a great return. Yes I did make money, but more importantly I learned alot about how teams are valued, how they make money, and equity in sports.

These are a few paths one can do their research about that exist for regular investors who want to learn and exposure.

In my opinion, if I could draw a whiteboard, the best setup for investing in a team looks like this.

Take a team from a market that is tapped out and move it to one that is surging. That is an obvious arbitrage (ie. all the Vegas teams)

The real-estate priority is also the angle that the buyers of entire teams are taking.

You can see the real estate play in Vancouver.

The Canucks were bought for a few hundred million. There was parking lot land around the arena. That land got developed. The development covered the team. You can see a smaller version any time a city builds a new rink or ballpark and a district springs up around it. That’s also one of the reasons Mark Cuban sold the Mavericks.

The other lever is media. If a league or team is approaching a rights renegotiation, watch closely. That cycle has pushed valuations across major sports. Rights are a multiplier when the timing lines up.

Women’s sports are a rising tide. The WNBA, the Professional Women’s Hockey League, the WTA. Smart people are leaning in.

College sports are in the middle of a structural shift. The Big Ten has been exploring a private equity deal. There is debate about voting power and brand weight. There are questions about what happens when a deal ends.

The bigger issue is how these systems create sustainable revenue now that cost structures have changed. Football used to subsidize many sports. Now football is the most expensive line on the budget.

Name, image, and likeness remains wild. Players cannot use team marks in commercial spots unless they buy those rights. Collectives and platforms have formed to route money. People are even sending funds toward uncommitted high school recruits. The rulebook is being written in real time.

A lot of money can be made in the chaos.

Ria’s brings in great points when talking about sports investing, sort by geography, tier, and type.

Padel is growing fast. Pickleball keeps spawning facility plays and development plans. Even sauna and event-driven experiences are showing up in mainstream business coverage.

The point is to pick a lane, apply a lens, and learn the economics that drive it.

You do not need to own a team to participate.

The gold rush creates space for pickaxe sellers. Merch and licensing are tricky, but not impossible.

Take Kristin Jyzcheck who built creative fan apparel lines because people were tired of having one or two options to support their team. It got big because she solved a real problem.

Around the arena you see hospitality, viewing parties, content, training technology, and facility management.

Sponsorship lives in this layer too.

A lot of it is still tracked in spreadsheets and email threads. That tells you how early we are.

If you sit inside sponsorship at a pro club, a college program, or a major event, reply and share a practice you think the whole industry should adopt.

If you are building in the pickaxe layer, tell us what you are seeing on the ground. If you have a line on a brand partnership that would bring value to this audience, we are listening.

Trent & Ria

What else is going on?

Paul Touw, CEO of Otto Aerospace, unveils the Phantom 3500. This jet redefines performance, efficiency, and comfort.

At half the maintenance cost and half the weight of comparable aircraft, the Phantom 3500 delivers unmatched operational efficiency. It burns approximately 115 gallons per hour—less than half of what traditional business jets consume—allowing operators to carry less fuel while flying farther, cleaner, and smarter.

Six years ago British fashion legend Paul Smith and The Sports Purpose teamed up to create this one-of-one 911 Art Car, using archival colours both inside and outside to create a seamless striped effect.⁠

Virgil Abloh launched Free Game, a website that breaks down the process of building a clothing brand step by step, making insider knowledge accessible to anyone interested in fashion.

A quote I was remembered of this week: