David Sunkin, co-leader of Sheppard’s Sports industry team, was quoted in the Sports Business Journal article, “Learfield’s Next Era: New Owner TPG best on scale, data and college sports growth,” which examined the strategy behind private equity investment in college sports media rights. Sunkin commented on why a platform like Learfield is an attractive investment opportunity for firms like TPG, give its scale, private ownership structure and position within the evolving athletic ecosystem.
“If you’re TPG or Ares or Arctos or whatever, you say, ‘OK, let’s invest in another part of the college sportecosystem,” Sunkin said. “It makes perfect sense to go into a company like Learfield that controls so much in the media rights world, because they’re not owned by the taxpayers of California. They’re owned by private individuals that look at it in a more traditional kind of way.”