Thrill One is on the move. The action sports events and content company was recently purchased by Fiume Capital and Juggernaut Capital Partners for $300 million, according to a source close to the negotiations, with UFC president Dana White among the co-investors.
Formed in 2020 and backed by The Raine Group and Causeway Media Partners (co-founded by Boston Celtics managing partner Wyc Grousbeck), Thrill One runs Nitro Circus, Nitro Rallycross (Nitro RX), Street League Skateboarding (SLS) and Thrill One Media. The company aggregated those properties to create a combined platform, and could expand further following the corporate acquisition.
“We certainly have the funding and the dry powder to take advantage of some of the acquisition opportunities that we’ve discussed previously,” Thrill One CEO Joe Carr said in an interview. “That’s certainly a big part of the thesis and the strategy for the new investors.”
Fiume and Juggernaut already co-own 3Step Sports, which has acquired numerous youth sports clubs and events.
As part of the transaction, skateboarder and entertainer Rob Dyrdek’s Dyrdek Machine and TV producer Craig Piligian are co-investing in Thrill One alongside White.
“I’ve been a big fan of the Nitro guys for a while now,” White said in a statement. “They are always doing the most insane stuff and constantly raising the bar. The potential reminds me of the early days of UFC.”
On the events side of the business, Nitro RX is expanding to run nine races across three continents in 2022-23 (from five in the US in 2021) while Nitro Circus is in the midst of a world tour and SLS’s Championship Tour is returning to arena venues. Thrill One Media, meanwhile, has multiple unscripted titles in development with plans to add scripted and competition shows to the mix later this year.
Combining those offerings allowed for organizational efficiencies and the ability to sell across a larger platform—Thrill One boasts 40 million followers and nearly two trillion impressions across all of its social channels over the last 12 months. In February, the company leveraged its various assets as part of an eight-figure sponsorship deal with energy drink newcomer A Shoc.
“Racing cars—or take skateboarding, it’s one of the most international products around, yet it hasn’t been fully capitalized on, and we haven’t been able to roll that product out as efficiently and effectively as we believe it could be,” Fiume CIO David Hirschfeld said in an interview. “You have this core product with an incredible fan base that we think we can help roll it out on a larger scale.”
