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Good Thursday Morning. Here’s the rundown of this week’s Sports Business Playbook:

• 📰 This Week’s Topic: We’re looking at two major soccer investment stories this week — Bruin Capital’s launch of As1 soccer agency, and Apollo/NFL’s private equity deal in LigaMX — and giving you a breakdown of what happened plus my thought bubble on both.

• 🤯 “Whoa of the Week”: The NFL’s novelty time slot games delivered

• 💪 Weekly Reminders that Sports are Awesome: Paige Bueckers makes history in the shoe game, and an amazing new drone video in Boston.

Hey team,

Trying something new this week.

I’ve gotten positive feedback from some of you on the thought bubbles attached to one or two of the news stories in the SBP Snacks where I give an additional quick-hit insight on a specific topic.

In this edition, we’re going to apply the thought bubble concept to two interesting stories this week in global soccer investment. You’ll both get up to speed on what happened and get some additional analysis — think of it as somewhere in between a snack and the deeper dives in longer form SBPs.

This week, we’re looking at two stories in global soccer investment:

1. Bruin Capital’s next investment is creating a global soccer agency

2. Apollo and the NFL’s potential investment in Mexico’s LigaMX

Bruin Wants to Win As1

What Happened

Bruin Capital, one of the most well respected growth equity firms in sports, has launched a new international soccer agency — As1 — and plans to create a new representation model.

To complete the launch, Bruin, in partnership with private firm TJC, acquired the agencies Nomi Sports, Position Number, Promoesport, and Football Division Worldwide.

The new agency will rank in the top 10 in the world in terms of market value, with more than 300 athletes and coaches represented, and it is expected to be valued as a company at around $310 million.

My Thought Bubble 💭 

Here’s what I love about this deal.

While many investors are looking at global soccer through a team ownership lens, which comes with the risks of unmitigated spending and potential relegation, Bruin is looking at the parts that are not going anywhere and do not have the same risk profiles — the players and coaches.

According to FIFA, agents made a record $888+ million from their role in international transfers in 2023. That’s expected to grow even more as the player economy continues to boom.

Plus, all agencies are looking to create marketing and venture arms that help to nurture their clients’ interests and branding off the field. Bruin is taking this concept a step further because its portfolio includes a number of acquired companies across gaming, media, tech, brand strategy and hospitality that As1 clients will now have access to.

Examples of relevant portfolio companies, per Sportico, include: creative agency Soulsight, production company Box to Box Films (of Drive to Survive fame), and sports media agency TGI Sport.

Offering these services will allow the agency to cocoon itself around current clients and tell an incredibly compelling story to prospective ones.

Lastly, the timing for this makes too much sense.

The agency is valued at a relatively modest $310 million right now, but it’s got runway to grow its footprint as it gets its footing and establishes some wins.

Most importantly, though, it is entering into a very M&A-heavy industry.

Agencies are often only as good as the people that run them and the things they can help their clients tap into. There are often no proprietary products or IP that are massive differentiators — the moats are usually people and scale.

So, in the build-buy-partner framework, larger agencies often opt for buy, snapping up smaller agencies in order to create a new division or offering that would take too much to stand up organically.

Roc Nation, Wasserman, and UTA have all made significant, eight to nine-figure agency acquisitions to grow their footprints in specific areas, and CAA takes the cake with a $750 million acquisition of soccer power ICM Partners last year.

My read on Bruin’s thesis is that they can grow this valuation to $1-2 billion in the next five to ten years and exit to one of the major players or another type of strategic.

Apollo and the NFL’s MXed Bag

What Happened

Apollo, the private equity giant with nearly $500 billion AUM, and the NFL have tentatively reached an agreement to invest $1.25 billion in Mexican soccer league Liga MX, pending a vote by the clubs.

Dubbed “Project Goal,” the agreement states that in exchange for the capital infusion, Apollo/NFL will receive a portion — expected to be ~20% — of a new entity that unifies and commercializes most of the league’s commercial areas (i.e., media rights, sponsorship).

The agreement will be put to a vote with the league’s 18 clubs later this month.

My Thought Bubble 💭 

This deal is all about what could be.

First, the good.

While European leagues, and to some extent MLS, take up the mindshare of most Americans when thinking about soccer, Liga MX is actually the most-watched soccer league in the US.

There are 36 million people of Mexican descent in the U.S., and according to Sportico, Liga MX games on Univision attracted 920,640 viewers in the US this season — more than Premier League matches on NBC (788,620) and English-language Major League Soccer (MLS) matches on Fox (436,750).

The league has suspended promotion/relegation for five years, and it’s bound to get a boost from the 2026 World Cup hosted by North America and the continued crossover exposure with the MLS via the Leagues Cup.

Plus, there has been some interest from outside investors, including Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney of Wrexham FC fame, who bought a minority stake of Club Necaxa earlier this year.

The capital will help to grow the league and stabilize any clubs on shaky financial footing. Plus, a centralized commercial structure that creates a path to growth and mitigates risk would likely attract even more investment interest.

Now, to the bad.

In addition to the potential pushback from fans given private equity’s checkered past with league level deals, the biggest barrier here is going to be the fragmented media rights.

Unlike other leagues that centralize these rights, Liga MX currently allows allows all teams to negotiate their own deals individually. Not only has it created a fractured viewing environment for fans — matches in the U.S. are spread across Fox Deportes, Univision, Telemundo and ESPN Deportes — but unifying these rights may not line up incentives-wise for some teams who can get more on the open market.

Liga MX only has three clubs on Sportico’s most valuable clubs in the world — Club America (#25), Chivas Guadalajara (#31), and Monterrey (#48). For comparison, 20 MLS clubs are in the top 50.

Point being, these bigger clubs have bigger followings and are signing much larger media deals than their counterparts, and the revenue gap between them is likely quite sizable because of this disparity.

This Project Goal agreement only works if all clubs agree to centralize their rights, and if you’re one of these big clubs, you likely aren’t thrilled by the idea of now having to share the pie with smaller clubs in the name of parity. There will probably need to be some monetary concessions made to these bigger teams that drive the majority of the interest from fans in order for the deal to work.

Lastly, the unknown.

What’s the NFL’s angle on this? The league has been known to invest in sports and tech companies through its 32 Equity group, but this is a whole different ballgame (literally and figuratively).

Plus, the league has a couple of owners who own both NFL and MLS teams. In such a competitive global sport like soccer where there are 5+ leagues already competing for attention in the U.S., you could argue that Liga MX’s growth in the States could cannibalize MLS.

For the owners to sign off on the investment, they’d have to see some upside and mitigation of risk. Reading the tea leaves, this tells me that there may be a Liga MX/MLS merger at some point in the distant future.

🤯 “Whoa” of the Week

Insane, mind-blowing things constantly happen in the sports business world. Here was my favorite of the past week.

1. A friendly reminder the NFL is still putting up record numbers

💪 Weekly Reminder that Sports are Awesome

This newsletter is, of course, mostly centered on the business side of sports and the things that happen off the field. That being said, it’s important to remember why we fell in love with sports in the first place, though.

This section is meant to highlight the amazing things that happened in sports this week that serve as that reminder.

1. Paige Bueckers becomes the first college athlete with a player’s edition shoe

2. These TD Garden drone videos never miss

Thanks for reading! Let me know what feedback you have.

Also, if you enjoyed this breakdown, please consider sharing it with your friends and network by clicking the social media icons at the top of the newsletter.

Until next time, sports fans!

-Alex