CVC’s sports strategy: from F1 to cowboys

It’s almost February, which can mean only one thing for us here at Scoreboard. The Business of Football Summit is fast approaching.

We’ll be gathering virtually on February 25 and in real life at London’s Peninsula Hotel on February 26 with some of the most influential people in the game, including top executives from La Liga, Uefa, Apollo, English football’s new regulator, and a long list of top clubs from across the globe.

There is certainly no shortage of things to talk about, from this summer’s World Cup to the Premier League’s new financial rules.

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This week we’re looking at CVC’s sports strategy as it expands into the wild west (literally). Plus, we run through the latest football transfer market data, and the attendance figures at the Australian Open. Do read on — Josh Noble, sports editor

CVC saddles up for phase three of its sport play

This week CVC made its first new investment in sport since spinning out Global Sports Group, a new entity to manage its various holdings in the sector.

On Wednesday, the firm announced a roughly $300mn deal to buy a majority stake in the Equine Network, a US-based company that organises and televises a number of “cowboy competitions” — roping, rodeo and barrel racing — along with some more mainstream equestrian events. The Equine Network already has its own streaming platform, and talks up its “powerful data insights”, two things CVC likes.

Live-streamed lasso looks like a very niche addition to the portfolio, but it does give GSG something it doesn’t have a lot of: US exposure. It also opens a new chapter for CVC in sport.

The Amsterdam-listed firm has long been a pioneer when it comes to investing in sport, starting with its purchase of MotoGP in the late 1990s. That was followed by the takeover of Formula 1, which became one of private equity’s earliest and biggest wins in sport. 

The firm bought the car racing series for about $1.7bn in 2006, and sold it nine years later for more than $8bn. During that time, commercial revenue rose 80 per cent, while prize money for F1 teams quadrupled. Those at the firm see its motorsport investments as phase one of its sports strategy: proof of concept.

Phase two was an acquisition spree, spearheaded by CVC partner Nick Clarry, that brought together minority stakes in a wide range of sports, including English rugby, Spanish football and women’s tennis.

Some of those investments have been problematic, to say the least. In 2022, CVC paid €1.5bn for a 13 per cent stake in a new company that collects TV and sponsorship income from the top two divisions of French football. The value of French football media rights has since plummeted.

The advent of GSG, announced last year, is billed by those at the firm as phase three of its sports strategy, allowing it to stay invested in sport for longer while giving other investors the chance to increase their direct exposure to the sector. More acquisitions were always part of that plan.

CVC has also been in talks over a possible debt refinancing or stake sale, with KKR among those interested. KKR is already in the process of buying sports specialist investment fund Arctos.

CVC’s rough estimated valuation for GSG of €9bn is based on a sector standard of around 25-30 times ebitda, currently about €300mn. Roughly half of those earnings come from its deal with La Liga, Spain’s top football league.

In the sport’s business world, opinion is divided on GSG. Some see it as a savvy move to bundle up assets to make them more attractive to the big investment firms looking to dial up their sport exposure.

Others see it as an attempt by CVC to reduce the firm’s exposure to a mixed bag of investments because individual exits look difficult. Of course, both can be true.

The Premier League’s unstoppable spending splurge

The financial dominance of the Premier League was underscored by the latest Global Transfer Report from Fifa, as the latest window to sign new players slams shut on Monday. English clubs spent $3.82bn in the international transfer market last year, more than the $3.43bn total for the next three leading spenders (Germany, Italy and France) combined.

The figure for English teams, up from $1.88bn in 2024, accounted for about 30 per cent of the record $13.08bn spent on international transfer fees across the men’s game in 2025. Spending on international transfers also hit a record high last year in women’s football.

The two biggest cross-border deals both involved Premier League holders Liverpool, who brought in midfielder Florian Wirtz from Bayer Leverkusen and Eintracht Frankfurt forward Hugo Ekitike.

The report does not include domestic deals, such as the British-record £125mn the Anfield club spent on striker Alexander Isak, signed from Premier League side Newcastle United.

That England’s leading clubs have bigger chequebooks than their continental rivals is not new. But the Fifa report also showed that it is not just Manchester City, Liverpool and Chelsea that are spending big, with the likes of Sunderland, Wolverhampton Wanderers and Nottingham Forest outspending European powerhouses such as Real Madrid and AC Milan in the international transfer market.

This dominance was reflected in the final standings for the Uefa Champions League group phase that was finalised this week. England claimed five of the top eight spots to advance into the last 16, while last year’s finalists Paris Saint-Germain and Inter Milan, as well as 2023-24 winners Real Madrid, all have to navigate a potentially tricky play off match or face elimination.

The Premier League will introduce new financial rules from next season that will link spending to revenues, moving English football closer to the model used by Uefa. But so long as the Premier League remains the world’s most lucrative domestic football competition, its clubs will also be able to keep spending.

The ever-growing Australian Open

Novak Djokovic rolled back the years in his semi-final win over Jannik Sinner to take his place alongside Carlos Alcaraz in Sunday’s Australian Open final — breaking the “Sincaraz” rivalry that has defined men’s tennis for the past two years. Aryna Sabalenka faces Elena Rybakina for the women’s title.

Besides the champions, the big winner over three weeks of gruelling competition in Melbourne has been Tennis Australia, which will reap the financial benefits of another record attendance.

More than 1.19mn spectators flooded through the gates in the 18 days to Thursday, close to the 1.22mn for the whole of the 2025 event, with three days remaining. The addition of the 1 Point Slam also helped drum up interest in the tournament earlier than usual.

In the battle for bums on seats, Australia and the US Open are the Sinner and Alcaraz of the Grand Slam circuit, easily outpacing Wimbledon and the French Open, which draw significantly smaller crowds despite their storied histories.

Wimbledon took in 548,770 spectators in 2025, and would love to welcome more were it not for the lengthy legal dispute that has held up its plan for a major expansion of the All England Lawn Tennis Club in London. Whatever the outcome, finding takers for additional tickets is unlikely to be an issue.

Highlights

• Last weekend climber Alex Honnold reached the top of Taipei 101, one of the world’s tallest buildings, without ropes, harnesses or safety nets. The whole thing was live streamed on Netflix. That climbing has piqued the interest of the world’s largest streaming service is a sign of how big the pursuit has become. We explore the global climbing boom in this Big Read.

• Elliott Management has exited its profitable investment in AC Milan, the historic Italian football club it took over in 2018 and helped return to winning titles.

• The head of English football’s new regulator has raised the prospect of making it harder for investors to use debt to fund club takeovers, a practice that has previously lumbered teams — including Manchester United — with years of costly interest payments.

• The Seattle Seahawks will go up for sale after next week’s Super Bowl, according to ESPN. The NFL franchise has been owned by Paul Allen’s estate since the former owner and Microsoft co-founder died in 2018. Sportico values the Seahawks at $6.59bn.

Final Farewell

Has LeBron James played his last game in Cleveland? The 41-year-old Ohio native won a championship for the title-deprived city nearly a decade ago, before “taking his talents” to the Los Angeles Lakers. The King returned home on Wednesday and received a tribute from the Cavaliers that suggested this could be it.