On the latest Sporticast episode, hosts Scott Soshnick and Eben Novy-Williams discuss some of the biggest sports business stories of the week, including the potential sale of Liverpool FC, the latest in a long list of sports franchises currently on the market.
Fenway Sports Group, which has owned the English soccer team since 2010, is entertaining takeover offers. The group is working with Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, and should it decide to sell the full team, it could fetch more than $5 billion. Fenway’s other sports assets include the Boston Red Sox and Pittsburgh Penguins (and it wants an NBA team), but the economics of top-tier European soccer are very different from the major U.S. leagues.
There are now a potentially unprecedented numbers of major pro franchises on the market. Liverpool joins the NFL’s Washington Commanders (which Sportico values at $4.78 billion), MLB’s Los Angeles Angels ($2.5 billion), MLB’s Washington Nationals ($2.23 billion), the NBA’s Phoenix Suns ($1.92 billion), and the NHL’s Ottawa Senators ($655 million). Italian soccer club Inter Milan is also in the market, and expected to sell for around $1 billion.
The hosts also talk about the NBA’s new private equity plan. Similar to the NFL, the league is having all of its clubs seed a pool of money that can be used to pursue equity investments. The NFL’s PE arm holds stakes in Fanatics, Clear and Skillz.
(You can subscribe to Sporticast through Apple, Google, Spotify or wherever else you get your podcasts.)
