How high-net-worth individuals can rival private equity in sport
Sport has been dominated by private equity, but high-net-worth individuals and family offices are coming becoming more common.
At the end of April, Andrea Agnelli, the former chairman of Juventus, launched Gamma Waves Partners, a sport-focused investment platform targeting opportunities in innovative sports competitions, teams and athletes. Co-founded with former Juventus captain Giorgio Chiellini and entrepreneur Rocco Benetton, the platform has been established as a permanent capital vehicle with no fixed term, focused on the intersection of sports intellectual property and sports technology.
On the IP side, Gamma Waves will take minority stakes in competitions, clubs, teams, athletes and emerging formats across basketball, hockey, cricket, tennis, baseball and rugby. On the technology side, it will invest in growth-stage sports-tech companies.
J.P. Morgan valued US and European sports franchises at around $400bn in 2025, with sports team valuations expected to continue to rise through media rights deals and sponsorships. Pitchbook reported in September 2025 that private equity investments in global sport had exceeded $12bn across 95 deals so far that year.
Private equity challenge?
Not only are we seeing a greater volume of investment in the sports sector as a whole, we are also witnessing private capital being deployed across an increasingly diverse pool of sports assets. In Deloitte’s 2025 Sports Investment Outlook, they have described a “barbell effect” in the market, with capital flowing towards both premium, established sports assets and high-growth, emerging sports.
This is partly driven by the rapid rise in technology, with greater game data, analytics and technology-enhanced stadia. It can also be explained by the climbing valuations of elite franchises, resulting in fewer individual investors being able to afford them, leading to a rise in investor consortiums, minority stake acquisitions and, significantly, capital flowing towards innovative and emerging sporting formats.
We have recently been involved in the major investment in The Hundred, investment in football clubs, investments in women’s sport, and an increasing number of investments in emergent sports data and sports tech businesses.
Alongside a greater variety of assets available in the sports market, the sector is also benefiting from new investor entrants. A J.P. Morgan Private Bank survey of 111 billionaire principals of family offices, representing more than $500bn in combined wealth, found that 20 per cent now hold controlling stakes in sports teams, up from just 6 per cent in 2022.
Active involvement
Sports investments provide family offices with opportunities for active involvement and the growth of family offices has been one of the most significant structural developments in private wealth management. We are seeing an increasing allocation of their assets in the sports market. Goldman Sachs’ 2025 Family Office Investment Insights report found that 25 per cent are already invested in sports or related assets with a further 25 per cent interested in pursuing sports investment.
Family offices’ patient capital structures, long-term planning and tolerance for illiquidity align naturally with sports assets, which benefit from steady returns but cannot be easily divested. In today’s unpredictable economic climate, alternative sports assets can be a tool to hedge against inflation, with multiple revenue sources including streaming rights and ticketing.
Gamma Waves sits at the confluence of these powerful trends. With due diligence already underway on a first, unnamed asset, it appears poised to invest in a market that shows no sign of slowing.
Keir Gordon, partner, and, Molly Moseley, senior associate, are both in the corporate team of law firm Charles Russell Speechlys