Private Equity Firm Velocity Capital Is Investing More Than $100 Million In A European Soccer Agency
On the Ball: Velocity Capital Management is acquiring a stake in Unique Sports Group, whose client roster of more than 350 soccer players includes West Ham United's Aaron Wan-Bissaka.
Since major sports leagues opened their doors to institutional investors, a wave of private equity firms has flooded in to capture outsized returns that have often dwarfed the S&P 500's. In the last year alone, Ares Management purchased a piece of the Miami Dolphins, Arctos Partners invested in the Buffalo Bills, and Sixth Street agreed to provide $1 billion toward the record-setting $6.1 billion sale of the Boston Celtics. But buying up stakes in teams isn't the only way to realize the upside of the sports industry, and Velocity Capital Management is looking at a different kind of opportunity.
On Tuesday, the New York-based middle-market private equity firm will announce that it has agreed to make a strategic investment in Unique Sports Group, a soccer talent agency headquartered in London. Velocity is committing more than $100 million to the deal, a person with knowledge of the transaction tells Forbes.
The agency, which represents more than 350 soccer players, including West Ham United defender Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Tottenham Hotspur forward Brennan Johnson and Arsenal midfielder Ethan Nwaneri, will use the capital to fuel its growth strategy, by making acquisitions, expanding into new territories and opening additional lines of business, such as entering women's sports.
'The type of business that Unique has is exactly the type of company that we like to invest in because it is providing a vital service,' says David Abrams, Velocity's managing partner. 'They're providing a vital service to teams in an industry that we think has tremendous tailwinds.'
Unique will mark the sixth—and largest—investment to date for Velocity, which launched in 2022 and is aiming to raise $500 million for its debut fund. (According to a public filing from February, it currently has $256 million under management.) Rather than picking up passive minority stakes in pro teams, as some of its competitors have done, Velocity focuses on playing an active role in adjacent and complementary businesses in sports, media and entertainment, chasing traditional private equity returns in the 25% range for investors.
Led by Abrams, who previously served as chief investment officer at Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, and Arne Rees, former CEO of data firm Sportradar U.S., Velocity has stakes in sports consulting firm Elevate, racing series operator Parella Motorsports, content monetization platform Videocites, experiential retailer Camp and the X Games.
Its latest deal comes at a time of mass consolidation in talent representation, with major players such as CAA, WME, Excel Sports Management and Wasserman gobbling up numerous smaller competitors over the past few years. In some cases, the spending sprees have had private equity backers: TPG invested in CAA in 2010 before exiting in 2023, for instance, and Shamrock Capital took a minority stake in Excel in 2020.
Unique CEO Will Salthouse knows his agency might have been a tempting target for one of those juggernauts but sees the firm fighting against the trend by staying independent—an attainable future with Velocity's support.
'Adding verticals that can go and compete with [bigger agencies], that's my vision,' Salthouse says, 'and that's always been my vision from starting this business 18 years ago.'
Abrams believes Velocity's cross-pollinating portfolio can aid that pursuit. For example, Elevate, which drives commercial opportunities for brands, teams and leagues, could steer club owners toward Unique when they're looking to upgrade on the field, and Videocites' platform can help the agency's athlete clients monetize their content. Abrams points to Endeavor—the holding company behind WME, which recently went private under Silver Lake after spinning off its investments in UFC and WWE—as a possible roadmap, with the powerhouse agency having started in talent representation and later diversified its business through acquisitions of other companies and intellectual property.
Unique Sports Group CEO Will Salthouse, front left, and Velocity Capital Management managing partner David Abrams, front right.
'I think you will have more potential exit paths than ever before,' Abrams says. "So from an investment perspective, we think there's more options for exit than just one or two big agencies that might want to consolidate us.'
In the meantime, Abrams is excited about one lever Unique is already pulling to offset the low-margin, resource-intensive nature of talent representation: the transfer market. Whereas agents in baseball, basketball, hockey and American football can make money only off the contracts they negotiate for clients—with their fees capped at 3% for on-field deals in the NFL, for instance, and 4% in the NBA—soccer agents also broker arrangements between clubs to buy and sell players.
One industry insider tells Forbes that representatives in the sport can collect roughly 10% from selling clubs in transfers, on top of commissions of up to 6% on playing wages. While Salthouse says that contract terms can vary and that there's 'no standard amount' of commission on these deals, Unique's negotiation of forward Jhon Durán's $83 million move last year from the Premier League's Aston Villa to Saudi Pro League club Al Nassr demonstrates the upside that agencies operating in other sports simply can't tap.
Abrams only expects the money flowing through soccer to increase as the Premier League continues its financial growth. The league's commercial and broadcast revenue is rising 17%, to $15.3 billion, for the 2025 to 2029 cycle, according to news site SportsPro, and that uptick could trickle back to transfer fees and player wages given that, under UEFA's Financial Fair Play Regulations, the amount that clubs are allowed to spend is directly tied to how much revenue they generate.
At the same time, however, other leagues across Europe are not necessarily matching that upward trajectory, with media rights payments flattening in recent years.
'I don't get concerned that media rights will level off because our experience has been with that intellectual property, even in a global financial crisis, it's not dropping by 50%,' Abrams says. 'So there is a lot of stability in the value of it.'
And reliability is especially attractive in the current economic environment. The number of M&A deals has been declining since 2021, in part because of former President Joe Biden's perceived skepticism of tie-ups and the Federal Reserve's efforts to slow inflation with higher interest rates. Meanwhile, the business world's optimism that the downward trend would reverse itself under a second Trump administration has all but dissipated amid the sitting president's erratic moves and tariff policies, which have rocked public markets.
But as Salthouse notes, 'there are no tariffs' on soccer, and the sports industry largely continues to charge ahead. Last year saw record M&A activity in the sector, with the deal count rising 44% to 410, according to a report from financial advisory firm Oaklins, and private equity firms nearly doubled their involvement, accounting for 190 of those transactions in 2024.
'We're not investing in teams; we're investing in these essential infrastructure businesses around the space,' Abrams says. 'So if there is a change in the world economy and recession or trade war, it doesn't really matter.'
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