DICK's Sporting Goods Leads $120 Million Investment In Unrivaled Sports
Unrivaled Sports, a youth athletics holding company co-founded by billionaires and professional team owners David Blitzer and Josh Harris, has raised $120 million to expand its presence in venues, leagues and competitions in baseball, flag football and other sports.
DICK's Sporting Goods led the latest round, investing in Unrivaled through DSG Ventures, the company's venture capital fund that it formed in 2022.
Unrivaled CEO Andy Campion would not disclose the company's valuation following the $120 million round, but he noted that it represents a minority stake in the firm. As such, Unrivaled is valued at more than $240 million.
Blitzer and Harris retained a majority stake and controlling interest in Unrivaled Sports. The Chernin Group, which invested in Unrivaled last year, remains a shareholder, as well.
Unrivaled owns 15 youth sports venues and properties across the U.S., including the Cooperstown All-Star Village near the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., the ForeverLawn sports complex near the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio and Under the Lights Flag Football, a national youth flag football league.
Blitzer and Harris invest in Unrivaled via their family offices, so it is separate from their professional sports holdings. They each own stakes in the Philadelphia 76ers of the National Basketball Association, New Jersey Devils of the National Hockey League and Washington Commanders of the National Football League, while Blitzer has also invested in Major League Baseball's Cleveland Guardians. Harris, co-founder of Apollo Global Management, has a net worth of $9.9 billion, according to Forbes, while Blitzer, a longtime senior executive at Blackstone Inc., has a net worth of $3.6 billion.
The other new investors in Unrivaled are Dynasty Equity, a sports investment firm founded by Jonathan Nelson, the co-founder of Providence Equity Partners who has a net worth of $3.4 billion, and K. Don Cornwell, a longtime investment banker; LionTree, an investment and merchant bank; and Miller Sports & Entertainment, a sports investment company that owns the Salt Lake Bees Minor League Baseball franchise, the Real Salt Lake Major League Soccer team
Campion said the $120 million 'does give us quite a bit of fuel for investing' and added that Unrivaled aspires 'to create a sustainable, growing and profitable business that can keep building on what we're investing in and acquiring, and we have that.'
'That's been one of the more challenging aspects of the world of youth sports is that the strength of businesses in youth sports and the sustainability of those businesses has been uneven,' said Campion, a former Nike chief operating officer who joined Unrivaled last year. 'We're aspiring to do both — not just raise capital, but also be a sustainable business and keep delivering from consumers' perspectives, so they keep coming back.'
Unrivaled plans on using the additional capital to acquire other venues and sports assets and upgrade its existing properties, including the fields and amenities such as lodging, food, beverages and retail offerings.
The company's recent deals include purchasing Big League Dreams sports facilities complexes in Las Vegas and Manteca, Calif., as well as Rocker B Ranch, a 325-acre ranch in Texas that has four baseball fields, other sports courts and lodging. Unrivaled this summer will also host the first girls national championship for flag football as well as the NFL Flag Championships, both at the ForeverLawn complex
During Campion's tenure at Nike, he worked closely with DICK's Sporting Goods. He said Unrivaled and DICK's have a 'shared mission' and that 'serving youth athletes is at the center of everything that they do.' Campion noted that DICK's could promote Unrivaled venues and leagues at the company's more than 700 stores across the U.S., while Unrivaled could sell DICK's gear at its properties. He also mentioned GameChanger, a youth sports mobile platform that DICK's owns that is popular for live-streaming games, scheduling and scorekeeping. GameChanger generated more than $100 million revenue last year and had about 9 million active users, according to DICK's most recent 10-K filing.
'The reality is we as a business were not in need of capital to do what we're doing today,' Campion said. 'Our view was that what we were in the greatest need of was other mission-driven, like-minded, strategic partners who wanted to go after providing that opportunity (in youth sports) on a much bigger scale….First and foremost, this process started with who are the strategic partners that we believe would align with that vision that we have about the more kids playing sports the better and the diversity of experiences. And top of that list for us was DICK's Sporting Goods.'
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