If padel can boast good growth in France, in the United States, another similar racket sport is making a real tidal wave: pickleball. The 159% increase in the number of practitioners over twelve months, according to the Sports and Fitness Industry Association, caught the eye of private equity teams.
Tom Dundon, founder of Dundon Capital Partners, owner of the Carolina Hurricanes ice hockey franchise, has won the professional league, the Pro Pickleball Association, in 2023. He also bought two sites specializing in the practice and organization of tournaments, and partnered with Tennis Channel to launch PickleballTV.
The channel broadcasts matches 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Between exploding audiences, still low TV rights and new competition formats to be invented, so-called emerging sports, like the cousin of padel, can count on the funds specializing in “sport business” to accelerate their growth.
Opening of the valves
Several of these funds already focus on women’s sports such as football, basketball and tennis, which are potentially more profitable in the long term than their men’s versions. One of the largest American funds in the sector, Sixth Street, with 65 billion dollars under management (60 billion euros), shareholder of Real Madrid and financial partner of FC Barcelona, is betting on it. He already supports the American women’s professional football league and has decided to inject $53 million into the creation of a new team, in California, Bay Aera.
Women’s basketball also benefits from the opening of the floodgates. The WNBA, the NBA’s little sister, raised $75 million in 2022 for, to date, the largest fundraising ever achieved by a women’s sports league. The operation values the WNBA at one billion dollars. In tennis, the broadcast rights of the WTA (Women Tennis Association) have not escaped CVC, a major specialist in the sector and investor in the rights management company of the French Football League. For $150 million, in March it took a 20% stake in the commercial subsidiary responsible for negotiating with broadcasters.
College sports, too, have begun to knock on the door of private equity. Several conferences such as Big Ten in the Midwest, Pacific-12 in the West or SEC in the southeast of the United States compete in the organization of championships, in which student athletes from large campuses compete. They share the United States, from north to south and east to west, for competitions in around ten disciplines, men’s and women’s, which fascinate sports fans. This summer, a new agreement between Big Ten and several broadcasters, including Fox, CBS and NBC, soared to seven billion dollars. It could earn each member up to $100 million a year.
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