On the latest Sporticast episode, hosts Scott Soshnick and Eben Novy-Williams are joined by longtime banker Sal Galatioto to talk about his extensive career, sports ownership. the massive increase in franchise valuations and more.
Galatioto, the president of Galatioto Sports Partners, started doing sports team transactions in the mid-1990s. One of his first deals, he said, was a San Antonio Spurs deal, in which a buyer could have purchased the NBA team for about $80 million. It is now worth about $2.05 billion, according to Sportico‘s numbers.
Over the course of Galatioto’s career, sports has gone from a “mom-and-pop” business to one of the most valuable corners of entertainment. In the past few months alone, English soccer club Chelsea sold for $3.16 billion, and the NFL’s Denver Broncos sold for a record $4.65 billion. Galatioto talks about how that shift happened, particularly as team owners began realizing the massive opportunity around media.
Galatioto also tells stories of some of his biggest deals involving many of the sports world’s most visible owners, including Dan Snyder, Tom Ricketts, Joe Lacob and George Steinbrenner. At the end, he details the origins of the phrase, “There is nothing more limited than being a limited partner for George Steinbrenner.”
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