The Path to Success Follows Our Process
The Sports Advisory Group represents owners in the sale of their Minor and Major League professional sports teams and across baseball, hockey, basketball, football and soccer. We offer comprehensive mergers and acquisitions services to current team and league owners, prospective team and league owners, management companies, municipalities and venue operators. Our services provide our clients with the tools they need to be successful and to more effectively and efficiently run their operations.
A deep review of company operations
Most of the companies we work with have achieved success through intense focus on their product(s) and day-to-day operations. We find that there are numerous ways to frame and package a company prior to a transaction that increases value for shareholders.
With backgrounds in professional sports operations and management, our staff is in a unique position to add significant value pre-transaction.
Is it Time to Sell?
Knowing how and when to sell your franchise, may be the most far-reaching decision you will ever make. It is a crucial step that will affect you, as an owner, your family and investors, your estate and your employees for years to come. Structuring a transaction that effectively addresses these critical issues is of the highest priority.
Exit strategies for business owners and investors will vary and can include the sale of a business through an auction process, a debt recapitalization, private placement of debt and/or equity, stock sale through an Initial Public Offering, and or the use of an Employee Stock Ownership Plan.
This is the time you need to get expert advice – the type of advice that a company with a 55+ year track record in mergers and acquisitions can provide.
Help in Establishing A Selling Price
We maintain a keen awareness of current market valuations. We know the market for your team and have several methods of determining what your property is worth. In addition, we have a proven ability in helping sellers get a fair price.
Positioning Your Company For Sale
Is your team ready for sale? Are your lease, concessions and other third party agreements a hindrance to making a deal? Should all or a part of the team be sold? Asset or stock sale? How should the team be positioned to maximize value? What are the tax consequences of the sale and your options for tax mitigation?
Questions like these demonstrate the need for expert advice. Working alongside your own accounting and legal advisers, we will provide you the advice necessary to make intelligent business decisions.
Preparation of a Detailed Offering Memorandum
We will prepare a professionally written and bound document, as well as digital offering document, for presentation to prospective buyers. We will then serve as an “information gateway” between the buyer and yourself in providing the information necessary to complete the due diligence process.
The Sports Advisory Group will work with you to ensure we have all necessary due diligence materials needed by a Buyer. This will allow you to focus on the day-to-day operations of the franchise, and other business ventures. Leave the M&A work to us!
Contacting a broad universe of potential purchasers
Generally there is a list of obvious strategic and financial buyers that are targeted by any broker conducting a traditional buyer analysis. Access to these buyers is important, but it is not enough. In today’s environment, we find that it is often the less obvious acquirers who are willing to stretch for creative deals that maximize shareholder value.
The Sports Advisory Group goes that extra mile to build a comprehensive and strategic target list.
Managing the deal process
We want our clients to be busy running their teams. As a result we not only carefully screen purchasers, but we use our deep understanding of our client’s franchise and operations to answer due diligence questions at the front end of the process. It is only after potential suitors have demonstrated a high level of seriousness that we introduce them to the company. It is our mission to both save our clients’ time and find them the right partner.
Advice during the Negotiation Process
The transaction negotiation is often the most important step of the engagement process. We customize each transaction to meet shareholder and other stakeholder interests. We balance business, legal and financial trade-offs in the negotiation process, and concern ourselves with every detail of the transaction.
The negotiations involved in selling a team are rarely simple in nature. There are typically many distinct negotiations that we engage in on behalf of our clients, including internal negotiations that may involve founders, management and investors; lenders; third party negotiations including municipalities, venue, media and other key third party vendors. Negotiations with buyers may also be multi-party with possible partners, venture backers or acquirers.
The team at The Sports Advisory Group has demonstrated a unique ability to creatively structure transactions that meet the specific needs of our clients. We pursue multiple deal types and structures in parallel to insure that the client is able to pick from a menu of options. We know the pitfalls, and the ways to avoid them. We often provide the key idea or suggestion that closes the deal. We deliver superior results for our clients.
Senior-Level Attention
Throughout the transaction process, clients of The Sports Advisory Group receive the partner level attention that is usually reserved for the larger clients at the larger firms.
We believe that there is no substitute for experience. Every client we represent can count on specialized attention until the transaction is closed.
Hands-On Style
We are “roll-up our sleeves” and get the job done people. Our approach starts with a deep analysis of the company’s operations prior to putting together analytics and marketing materials.
Market Knowledge Second to None
Our global relationships, coupled with our unique understanding of professional sports operations, local economies, industries and cultures help us consistently deliver high quality advice and service, time and again.
Our team-based approach allows us to maintain a high level of quality and integrity in developing and executing on our client’s transactions – making us the M&A advisor of choice for some of the most demanding clients in sports.
Operations Savvy – Ownership Smart
Our associates are some of the most accomplished people in the field. Their broad exposure to all aspects of professional sports operations and marketing, from the front office to the playing field, provides invaluable support in analyzing an operation and being able to sell it to a prospect.
A Long Record of Accomplishments: Thousands Sold and Appraised
The Sports Advisory Group has devoted many years of service to bringing together buyers and sellers of media, sports and entertainment properties.
The same energies, commitment, and unparalleled level of services we have brought to the media industry we now bring to professional sports.
We want to be your broker.
If you are interested in the purchase, sale or investment in a professional sports team, e-sports organization or in sports tech? We’d welcome the opportunity to chat further with you about the various opportunities that exist in today’s market. Contact: Tommy George, President, (240) 409-6297; tgeorge@thesportsadvisorygroup.com.