Friday Dump 🥟 - CU's PIF request, Netflix ad business, Rory's TickPick purchase

To our good-looking fans: we love you dearly, but my goodness do we need a break. Since the start of 2024, we’ve written 2 articles/week for 34 consecutive weeks and we feel it’s time to take a load off (i.e. 1 week off). And what better time than the week leading up to Labor Day?! So don’t forget us for that 1 week because we’re going to be coming back stronger and better than ever!

Much love, UB fam 🫶

Turn down for what, Friday Dump 🥟? 

Each Friday, we’ll breakdown 3 sports business stories that have caught our eye throughout the week. They will be assembled in the following format:

🔴 - Stories that make us stop, think, and question.

🟡 - Stories with a hint of risk and unpredictability.

🟢 - Stories that make us feel good to go and empowered.

Fire up that loud, another round of shots.

🔴 Buffs looking for NIL fund cash injection. Ever since Deion Sanders (Coach Prime, duh) took over as the Head Football Coach for the University of Colorado at Boulder (CU), the Buffaloes and the university have gained an enormous amount of press. And with that press, comes CA$H MONEY…naturally! We saw it a few months ago as it was reported that CU’s multimedia rights (MMR) revenue jumped by 51% after Prime’s first year as head coach. But this latest news, is making all us normies scratch our head in confusion, while also thinking to ourselves, “duhh it’s so obvious this was a possibility!” According to a report from Sports Illustrated, former CU special teams coordinator, Trevor Reilly, claims he spent time in the Middle East lobbying Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) to invest in the school’s NIL program.

• Now, it might not be all that shocking especially considering the amount of money the PIF possesses (assets worth ~$925B around the world), along with the fact they continue to branch into different sports to expand their sports-centric portfolio.

• But, this news just feels like a changing of the tides.

  • It comes weeks after Howard basketball coach Kenny Blakeney told The Washington Post of his pitch to private equity firms asking for $100M in return for a 33% stake in the program.

• Now that just about anyone involved in college sports can monetize off their name, image, and likeness, it’s bound to follow the path of other professional sports when it comes to accepting private equity and sovereign wealth money.

  • The NFL is even doing their due diligence on the matter.

🟡 Netflix getting stronger with age. In November 2022, Netflix launched their ad-supported tier, while congruently launching their advertising business. And on Christmas Day 2024, Netflix will start frolicking in the land of live sports with help from the NFL. Do you see where we’re going with this? The company said it boosted advertising commitments from its recent up-front negotiations by more than 150% compared to the 2023 upfront, with its new 3-year deal for Christmas Day NFL games and 10-year agreement for live rights to WWE’s Raw both playing significant roles. Netflix was already the King of Streaming and now they’re set to dip their toes into live sports which ultimately will prop up their ad business.

• Netflix reported ~278M subscribers as of the end of Q2 — that number is far and away better than any other competitor.

• And even at it’s early stage, ads continue to take on more importance for Netflix.

  • In geographic markets where the platform is running ads, their ad-supported tier now accounts for 45% of all sign-ups — yes, only 18 months after its inception.

• This news looks so good for Netflix that it helped push their stock to a record close of $698.54 per share on Tuesday (+48% this year).

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🟢 Rory the investor. Sure, professional golfer Rory McIlroy hasn’t won a major championship since 2014, even though he was ranked by Forbes as the #2 Highest Paid Golfer in the world. But he’s not letting that winless streak get in the way of his investments! Rory’s Dublin-based investment firm, Symphony Ventures, has partnered with Brighton Park Capital to collectively deposit $250M into TickPick for a majority ownership stake of the company. This will be the company’s first investment since a $40M round in 2019.

• TickPick separates themselves from their competitors as they do not offer services fees — which could end up being ~10% additional charge if a consumer wants to go to a sporting event or concert.

• This TickPick deal is the latest sports and entertainment investment for Rory, who, alongside Tiger Woods, is a co-founder of TMRW Sports, the $500M parent company of the soon-to-launch golf league TGL.

• Through Symphony, Rory also has equity in adult mini-golf chain Puttery, digital tee time platform GolfPass, virtual reality game Golf+, course management company Troon Golf, and wellness companies Hyperice, and Whoop.