The NFL’s Next Billionaire Owner Won’t Be a Person

拥有一个主要联盟的体育队长长期以来一直是一个富人的状态符号 - 但它并不总是投资。

只有七到十年前，几乎没有四大专业体育联赛的团队 - 国家足球联盟，主要联赛棒球，国家篮球协会和国家曲棍球联赛 - 据约翰·莫加格说，体育投资银行Moag＆Co.的首席执行官在巴尔的摩。

But these days pro sports franchises are bona fide profit engines. Now 87 percent of the teams in the four major leagues have positive operating income, including 100 percent in the NFL, according to福布斯.

团队有飙升的估值来证明它。对冲基金Titan David Tepper，Appaloosa Management的创始人和总裁，上个月同意购买卡罗莱纳黑豹报告的22亿美元。这将符合为美国运动特许经营支付的记录价格：蒂尔曼Fertitta，Restaurant Giant Landry的首席执行官和所有者，去年购买了22亿美元的休斯敦火箭队。

Just five years ago,福布斯pegged only one NFL team’s value at $2 billion: the Dallas Cowboys. Now all but five football teams are worth at least that much. “America’s Team,” as the Cowboys are widely known, has a valuation of $4.8 billion, the highest of any sports franchise in the world, according to福布斯.

And the upward trend will continue, experts agree. “Profits and valuations will rise because revenues will keep going up,” says Moag. “Some people look at sports and say this is ridiculous, but valuations follow revenues.”

As price tags keep climbing, the barrier to entry becomes tougher, even for billionaires. That’s because leagues limit the amount of debt new owners can take on as part of their purchases. Enter private equity firms.

“你不能价值1美元基本脉冲电平lion to buy teams now,” Moag points out. “One person may be willing to put in $300 million to $500 million, but where will the remainder of the money come from? He will dial for dollars, but that’s still a huge amount of money. The opportunity for private equity is tremendous — if leagues let them play.”

That may be a big if, experts say. Although private equity firms and major sports franchises may seem like a perfect match on paper, there are reasons such tie-ups aren’t more common. League rules almost guarantee that purchasers of teams will be individuals or groups of individuals. Every person or entity that acquires interest in a team has to be vetted and approved by the league. If it’s an entity, every owner within it has to complete application papers and submit them to the league for approval.

That has tended to rule out private equity funds. “They have so many investors, and technically all investors would have to be vetted,” says Robert Caporale, chair of sports investment bank Game Plan in Miami Beach, Florida. “That becomes a procedural nightmare.”

他和其他人只能记得一个私募股权公司参加体育队购买的实例。2011年，私募股权公司铂金股权首席执行官汤姆富豪股权，并与他的公司资金，铂金股权资本合作伙伴II之一买了底特律的活塞。他占团队的51％，该基金收到了49％。然后在2015年，Gores买了基金的股份。

Other individuals in the hedge fund and private equity sectors have purchased teams too, but without the participation of their firms. In addition to Appaloosa’s Tepper, the list includes Josh Harris, co-founder of private equity titan Apollo Capital Management, who is principal owner of the Philadelphia 76ers and the New Jersey Devils; Joseph Lacob, a partner at iconic venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and majority owner of the Golden State Warriors; and the owners of the Milwaukee Bucks: distressed-debt maven and Avenue Capital Group co-founder Marc Lasry, Fortress Investment Group’s Wesley Edens, and York Capital Management’s Jamie Dinan.

Andrew Zimbalist表示，税收考虑也有助于阻止私募股权基金，普遍认为是体育经济学家的院长和史密斯学院教授。拥有团队的个人可以摊销他们的特许经营权的价值，归因于90％的价值到无形资产（或不是物理的资产）和商誉（在收购期间为某些无形资产支付的保费）。如果该团队由伙伴关系所拥有，或者作为符合伙伴关系的公司所拥有的公司，那种税收福利将提供给业主的个人回报。

但私募股权基金管理人员已经有税收的税收保护，因此Zimbalist说，他们购买一个团队的激励措施并没有对个人购买。

Still, the environment may be changing. Moag notes an encouraging precedent. From 1994 to 1998 the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan sank about $300 million into Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Toronto Raptors, and sold its 80 percent stake for $1.29 billion in 2011.

“That was a long hold, but a huge win for investors,” Moag says. “I think in many ways that’s the future. This is where a lot of the equity needs to come from.”

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Caporale says the trend will develop一旦现有业主决定出售他们的团队s discover they are unable to find individual buyers. “They will be the ones to start making arguments in the league that this needs to be allowed,” he predicts.

他说，至少有一个普罗拉尔倾向于名称的主要联赛，其中探索了顾问，其中一个顾问建议让私募股权基金进入所有权业务。

“不幸的是，他们没有被允许在过去的五到十年中参加，因为他们会收到伟大的回报，可能比他们投入的一些其他公司更好，”毛衣笔记。

Sports teams represent long-term investments, which can fit well with the private equity model. Experts say private equity firms will be eager to invest.

“It’s a high-growth industry, and the potential for solid returns on investment is high,” says Reena Aggarwal, a finance and business administration professor at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business.

Teams would represent an attractive new asset class for private equity funds — and a natural spillover, given that some private equity titans themselves own teams as individuals, she says.

在没有固定终止日期的情况下，越来越多的私募股权基金，体育队伍尤为普遍了解，萨克拉门托一家萨克拉门托的体育投资银行的劳动力劳伦斯的债务劳伦斯的越来越多的私募股权基金。一些私募股权公司可以很好地将购买团队购买到团队体育场上的房地产投资。

“如果私募股权公司拥有房屋的房地产面，我可以看到他们进入一个项目，他们可以创造一个运动锚定，混合使用的发展，”他说。

Caporale says that initially, team purchases involving private equity funds will probably be similar to the Gores–Platinum Equity deal to acquire the Pistons, with a fund backing an individual.

“The funds need to be cognizant of managing the team, so they would want someone involved who’s responsible for operations,” he explains. Further down the road, he sees private equity funds acquiring teams by themselves.

But not everyone thinks private equity firms will flock to buy teams. Some experts question whether teams’ cash flow is strong enough to appeal to private equity managers and investors.

“NFL具有可预测的利润，但在其他联赛中，它可以在团队和市场各方面变化，”在加利福尼亚州圣莫尼卡的体育银行公司Park Lane高级副总裁Sean Clemens说。“如果业主不能利用媒体权利，那么可能没有现金缓冲年度。”

Phil de Picciotto, president of sports marketing agency Octagon, a Stamford, Connecticut–based subsidiary of advertising giant Interpublic Group of Cos., doubts teams’ ongoing profits would provide as income as attractive to private equity funds as other assets they hold, especially given the hefty sums the funds would have to pay for teams. Private equity firms would have to hold teams for a long period to enjoy bountiful returns, experts say.

“但是私募股权通常擅长善于转动周围的东西，创造额外的价值然后销售，”de Picciotto说。

What’s more, private equity firms and sports leagues may have a culture clash. “Leagues want consistency and owners who are in it for the love of sports, offering benefits to the community and supporting goals of the league,” he notes. “None of these are private equity qualities.”

Buying sports teams won’t necessarily spark enthusiasm among fund investors either, says Steve Horowitz, a partner at sports investment bank Inner Circle Sports in New York City.

“If it goes up, no one cares, and if it goes down, it gets you fired,” he says. “Everybody assumes it was a vanity play.” Institutional investors already own some of sports teams’ debt, and that makes more sense, according to Horowitz.

Could the stock market become an option for team ownership? Several teams went public in the 1980s and 1990s, including the Boston Celtics and the Cleveland Indians. But it didn’t turn out well for shareholders, as share prices lagged. Although the Green Bay Packers remain publicly held, they’re now an exception (along with the New York Knicks, the New York Rangers, and an Atlanta Braves tracking stock).

Sports leagues don’t want public ownership, because it means that more financial information from teams and leagues will be divulged, says economist Zimbalist. “They are worried that creates too much instability in management.”

Team owners also are reluctant to spill the beans on their finances. Going public involves securities law compliance, quarterly reports, and Sarbanes-Oxley requirements, such as CEOs and CFOs personally guaranteeing financial information, notes Lawrence of Accelerate Sports. And owners generally don’t need the cash that would come from an initial public offering.

Moreover, teams tend to be discounted on public markets from how they may be valued in private transactions, says Kurt Badenhausen, a senior editor at福布斯who specializes in the business of sports.

“经营一个运动队往往对你经营一家公共公司的方式，”他解释道。“对于一家公共公司而言，有不懈的需求来增加利润。但粉丝不想要团队那样运行;他们想赢得冠军。“这往往涉及所有者为明星球员的业主支出。

But owners may eventually have an incentive to go public, some experts say. As team valuations continue to increase, shrinking the potential pool of buyers, owners who want to sell their teams might see going public as the most viable way of cashing out.

“The same thing that might encourage leagues to allow private equity fund ownership might also result in public ownership,” Caporale says.

So what has made so many teams profitable,paving the way for those valuation increases? Quite simply, television revenue. Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, when asked by亚博赞助欧冠to name the most important factors in making a team profitable, responded: “Winning championships and having a good TV deal.”

小牛赢得了NBA总冠军in 2011. Their operating profit totaled $21 million in the 2016–’17 season, according to福布斯.

TV contracts at the national and local levels are bigger than ever. The NBA’s six-year national deal that began last year totals $24 billion, for example.

TV networks are willing to pay that kind of money because sports represent one of the few types of programming that viewers will watch live, rather than utilizing their digital video recorders to peruse games at a later time and bypass ads. Pro sports contests dominate ratings lists for TV programs. They accounted for eight of the ten most-watched programs in 2017, including six football games, according to TV-ratings tracker Nielsen Co.

“没有一个Tivos运动，”Moag说，指的是DVR的品牌。“结果，广告斑件批评性重要。这就是为什么广告在体育中。“体育编程吸引了广泛的人口，特别是年轻男性。

Of course, many sports fans are cutting back on their usage of traditional TV, opting for à la carte viewing options. This trend is hurting financial results at sports broadcasters like ESPN. But that doesn’t mean team owners have to worry about dwindling revenue from media rights contracts.

“I’ve been covering this for almost 25 years, and every year I hear that TV deals will have to be smaller,” says Badenhausen. “But we still haven’t seen any reduction for the top four leagues.”

今年早些时候,NFL签了3美元ion, five-year contract with Fox Sports to broadcast a single game on each of 11 Thursday nights. That amounts to a whopping 43 percent annual gain from the previous Thursday night deal. And the league still has digital rights to sell for those games. Amazon reportedly paid $50 million to stream Thursday games last season.

Experts anticipate that rights fees will continue to climb. “Can they sustain these levels of increases? Probably not,” Badenhausen says. “But I don’t see the market for live TV sports collapsing anytime soon. Sports remain the No. 1 programming for people tuning in to watch live events.”

As viewers cut or shave their cords, TV broadcasters suffer, but that provides an opportunity for their digital brethren. Even if ESPN, Fox, and the other TV broadcasters shell out less for sports content, they may simply be replaced by online players. Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube all have offered live sports streaming.

In addition, with most leagues operating under revenue-sharing agreements with players, owners wouldn’t bear the sole burden of a decline in TV revenue. “If TV revenue goes down, then player compensation goes down,” says Caporale. “So if all other numbers stay the same, teams may make less, but it won’t be catastrophic.”

Sports team owners also have benefited over the past five to seven years from labor agreements that have been more favorable to their side, reducing players’ share of revenue. In most cases, players were receiving more than 50 percent of the revenue, and now the balance is closer to 50-50.

“CBAs [collective bargaining agreements] have empowered leagues,” says Inner Circle’s Horowitz. “Every team in the big three sports and two thirds of the NHL should break even or better if they are run right.”

To be sure, this nirvana for owners may not last. “Players are mobilizing to a degree,” Badenhausen says. “They have seen the valuations of franchises really soar and teams become more profitable than ever. So I think they’ll really go after a bigger piece of the pie in coming labor agreements.” That obviously could affect profitability.

Another important factor in teams’ economic strength is stadium revenue — ticket sales and bookings for outside events, such as rock concerts. Teams have largely been able to maximize opportunities there, with most of them playing to capacity crowds, except in baseball, Badenhausen notes.

He and others are highly impressed with Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones in this regard. “No one markets as well as the Cowboys, and that’s why they’re the most profitable team in the world,” Badenhausen says.福布斯estimates the Cowboys’ operating income for the 2016–’17 season at $350 million.

“Jones has expanded the Cowboys brand by bringing in more events to the stadium,” Badenhausen notes. In addition to concerts, AT&T Stadium, the home of the Cowboys, has hosted basketball games, college and high school football games, soccer matches, rodeos, and motocross and Spartan races.

Some owners, such as Ted Lerner of the Washington Nationals, have done well developing property surrounding their stadiums. “Team ownership is really a real estate or media enterprise,” says Octagon’s de Picciotto. “Sports just happens to be the platform of a much broader business.”

The sports revenue pie is due for a big shift in the future, some experts believe. That will come from sports gambling, which team owners and leagues have hoped to monetize for some time. The Supreme Court threw them a lifeline last month, ruling that all states are now free to legalize sports betting. It’s difficult to know exactly how the sports gambling market will shake out once it’s broadly legalized, but team owners would seem to have a huge opportunity to grab a piece of the pie.

如果他们可以打赌他们，粉丝可能会在电视上观看他们最喜欢的球队游戏更感兴趣。此外，特许经营可能会在他们的竞技场和在线赞助赌博比赛。“有1000亿美元的不受调节运动赌博，”德比奇托说。“这将是它受到监管时最大的收入池。”

All of these factors could appeal to private equity firms thinking about acquiring pro sports franchises. That said, team ownership isn’t all about finances. It also satisfies owners’ thirst for competition, desire to help the community — and vanity.

“It’s often been said that these are people who can walk into a restaurant and order anything they want, but no one recognizes them, so they become sports team owners,” says Steve Gans, a partner at Boston law firm Prince Lobel Tye and a financial adviser to soccer team owners.

Mavericks owner Cuban tellsII社区服务元素是他最重要的激励因素。但还有其他东西。

“There is no other business that throws a parade when you reach the pinnacle of success,” Cuban says. “Google, Amazon, etc. will never have 500,000 people cram the streets to cheer their companies. I love parades.”