🔊 Meet The Company Dominating Youth Sports

📰 TOP STORY
Unrivaled Sports Acquires Rocker B Ranch Expanding Its Portfolio Of Youth Sports Brands

• Unrivaled Sports Acquires Rocker B Ranch. Unrivaled Sports, founded by sports industry titans Josh Harris and David Blitzer is quickly becoming a major player in the youth sports space. This week, they announced the addition of Rocker B Ranch to its baseball & multi-sport division. Rocker B Ranch, located close to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, is a 325-acre ranch that combines elite youth baseball tournaments with a scenic, full-service resort destination. It features four premier baseball fields and resort-style amenities, including lodging options such as cabins, casitas, a lodge, food and beverage services, two swimming pools, a fishing pond, and a music venue. The property also includes volleyball, basketball, and tennis courts.

Why is this important?

Youth sports is going through a significant transformation and private equity is taking notice. I’ve mentioned the numbers in a previous newsletter, but I believe we’ll see much more activity in this space over the next few years. Because the space is highly fragmented, there’s opportunity to implement solutions to drive massive scale. Unrivaled Sports’ strategy involves deploying operational expertise, creating unique programming, and expanding portfolio company offerings domestically and internationally. The fact of the matter is that many parents will spend a lot to see their children succeed in sports. With that in mind, plus the huge TAM, look for this $30B+ industry to grow in 2025 and beyond.

Currently, Unrivaled Sports’ portfolio also includes:

• Ripken Baseball

• Cooperstown All-Star Village

• Sports Force Parks

• Baseball Factory

• Softball Factory

• High Cascade

• We Are Camp

• ForeverLawn Sports Complex at the Pro Football Hall of Fame Village

• NEFFL

• YTH Sports

• Seek Skate Camp

• SNÖBAHN

• Diamond Nation

• Milepost 35

💰 MONEY MOVES 
Denver FC Wins NWSL Expansion Bid For $110M

• Denver FC Secures NWSL Expansion With $110M Fee. Denver will be home to the National Women's Soccer League's 16th franchise after submitting the first payment fee, according to a Sportico report. The total expansion fee is $110M, the largest expansion fee in women's sports. For Denver FC is the backer of the Denver bid and is headed by IMA Financial Group CEO Robert Cohen. Denver, Cleveland, and Cincinnati were the finalists for the NWSL's newest addition. The Utah Royals and Bay FC were also added this season (more here).

• Brera Holdings Acquires Majority Stake In Juve Stabia. Brera Holdings announced the initial closing of its agreement to acquire a 52% stake in Italian Serie B football club SS Juve Stabia. Brera Holdings is focused on multi-club ownership (MCO), and expanding its global portfolio of sports clubs. The company aims to leverage Juve Stabia's position in Serie B for player development opportunities and expects the investment to contribute to shareholder value from 2025 onwards (more here).

• Allwyn Acquires Majority Stake in Novibet Parent Company. Allwyn, one of Europe's largest national lottery operators, has agreed to acquire a 51% stake in Logflex MT Holding Limited, which owns online sports betting and gaming group Novibet. As part of the deal, Allwyn will pay an initial €217M ($225M) in cash to acquire the stake. An additional €110M ($114M) will be due in potential future earnouts based on Novibet’s performance (more here).

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 🤝 PARTNERSHIPS
Sky Sports Announces Partnership With TGL

• Sky Sports Partners With TGL. Sky Sports has secured a two-year partnership with TGL, the new team golf league founded by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy's TMRW Sports. The deal includes both the 2025 and 2026 seasons and will give Sky Sports customers in the UK & Ireland, Germany, Austria & Switzerland, and Italy exclusive coverage of every match, including the semi-finals and the best-of-three finals (more here).

• Perfect Game Partners with Equity Sports. Perfect Game, the world's largest youth baseball and softball platform and scouting service is partnering with Equity Sports Partners, a leading sports marketing and media company, to advance media and sponsorship sales. Equity Sports will help secure sponsorship opportunities, larger marketing partnerships, and traditional media ad sales agreements, with brands interested in reaching the growing youth sports market (more here).

• BCHL Partners With Drive Hockey Analytics. Drive Hockey Analytics, a revolutionary sensor-based system that delivers advanced hockey analytics is partnering with the British Columbia Hockey League for the 2025 Top Prospects Game and On-Ice Combine. Utilizing Drive’s advanced technology, players will gain an in-depth understanding of their skating efficiency, fitness metrics, and gameplay performance (more here).

🔊 ATHLETES & OTHER NEWS
It’s An NBA Christmas Day Miracle

• NBA Announces Christmas Day Viewership Numbers. An average of 5.335M viewers tuned in for the five games that spanned 13 hours on ESPN platforms, according to Nielsen, up slightly over the first projections from last week. That made it the most-watched Christmas slate of NBA games since 2019 (more here).

• The Evolution and Impact of the Global Sports Betting Sector. The "Strategic Intelligence: Sports Betting 2024" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The report includes coverage of key players in the sports betting sector including Betano, BetMGM, Betway, Bet365, Caesars Entertainment, DraftKings, FanDuel, and Sportradar (more here).

• Diamond Sports Group Emerges From Chapter 11 As Main Street Sports Group. Diamond Sports Group announced that it has completed its financial restructuring and has emerged from Chapter 11 as Main Street Sports Group. Main Street Sports emerges with a healthy capital structure and is well positioned, with valuable professional team rights across the MLB, NBA, and NHL, to elevate the fan experience and drive incremental value for its team, league, and distribution partners (more here).

• After Bay FC’s Record-Setting First Season, CEO Brady Stewart Sees A Movement Coming In Women’s Sports. Global investment firm Sixth Street put up $125M to get Bay FC off the ground and partnered with US Women’s National Team legends Brandi Chastain, Leslie Osborne, Danielle Slaton, and Aly Wagner to begin the branding. Brady Stewart was brought in as employee number 1 and eight months later, saw Bay FC sell out its home opener at PayPal Park with 18,000 fans in attendance for what would begin a historic season in women’s soccer (more here).

• Cosm Immersive Theater Offers A New Way Of Watching Live Sports. A new kind of immersive theater is giving US sports fans the live-game experience at a fraction of stadium prices. Cosm, which currently has two locations and plans to open more this year, hopes to be both a “shared reality” destination and a neighborhood anchor. But can they draw die-hard sports fans away from their beloved local watering holes (more here)?

• Horse Racing Is Set For A Resurgence. After decades of declining interest, horse racing could be poised for resurgence. A boom in gambling makes for bigger purses and attracts higher-quality horses. In 2023 the sport added more than $36B to the US economy, supporting nearly half a million jobs, according to the American Horse Council (more here).