Josh Harris and David Blitzer, longtime sports team owners, have been actively investing in youth sports properties over the past two years. Now, the private equity giants are consolidating those assets into a new parent company, Unrivaled Sports.
The formation of Unrivaled includes an investment by Peter Chernin’s Chernin Group and the hiring of former Nike COO and longtime Disney executive Andy Campion to run the company.
“With Unparalleled Sports, we don’t just invest in sports; “We are investing in future generations by making sports more inclusive and accessible in communities across the country,” Harris said in a statement.
As an investment vehicle, Chernin Group founder Chernin, along with Jesse Jacobs and Mike Cairns, focuses on sports, gaming and health and wellness in its portfolio. Investments included Action Network, Barstool Sports, Cars & Bids, Ora and Premier Lacrosse League.
Blitzer says the partnership with TCG and hiring Campion will allow Unrivaled to expand its infrastructure.
Campion would not comment on the terms of TCG’s investment, other than to say that the valuation was at a higher level than the cost of recent acquisitions in youth sports by Harris and Blitzer as a result of the company’s high growth and profitability.
Their first investment was in 2022 with the purchase of the Cooperstown All Star Village youth baseball facility for $116 million, doubling down on baseball with a majority stake in Ripken Baseball. Other purchases included a deal with Olympian Shaun White for sports brand We Are Camp, which valued the company at $10 million, and a foray into youth soccer in December with a $10 million majority investment in the ForeverLawn Sports Complex at Hall of Fame Village . In Canton, Ohio.
More than 550,000 athletes and 1.1 million participants annually visit Unrivaled’s 12 owned and operated facilities.
“Forming Unparalleled Sports will provide us with more opportunities to advance our work in youth sports and allow kids to play in big league environments,” Baseball Hall of Famer Cal Ripken Jr. said in an email.
Campion was already connected to Blitzer through a minority ownership stake in MLS’s Real Salt Lake and the NWSL’s Utah Royals, with Blitzer being the principal owner of both teams. Campion is also a member of the board of directors of Starbucks, the LA28 Olympic and Paralympic Games and SpringHill Corporation. He spent the past 17 years at Nike.
“There is an almost insatiable demand for youth sports experiences,” Campion said in a phone interview. “What exists today is a small fraction of what we think the potential is.”
Campion sees promise across three dimensions: geography, sport and gender. He has identified volleyball, soccer and basketball as options to add to his existing repertoire of baseball, softball, soccer and action sports.
The baseball business, led by Wade Martin, is centered around the East Coast, but attracts teams from across the country, including 28% of the clubs in the All Star Village from California. Campion says the West Coast could support a facility, and is even eyeing the international level.
He pointed to football as a “huge opportunity” for Unrivaled, and a place that could see “accelerated investment” in 2024. There are not as widely accessible options in football as there are in baseball with Cooperstown and Ripken.
Funds affiliated with BDT and MSD Partners provided debt financing for Unrivaled.
Harris and Blitzer are the founders of Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, the parent company of the Philadelphia 76ers, New Jersey Devils and Prudential Center, which also owns stakes in Joe Gibbs Racing and Elevate. The billionaires have also invested together in Crystal Palace FC and Washington Commanders, with a Harris-led group paying $6.05 billion for the team in 2023.
Blitzer owns a stake in teams in each of the five major U.S. sports leagues, several European soccer clubs and the TGL franchise with Tiger Woods. However, at Sportico’s Investing in Sports event in October, when asked where he would invest today’s $500 million in sports, Blitzer didn’t hesitate: “I’m quite bullish on youth sports.”