Sports

English soccer deal is doubly worrying

14 Jun 2012

Domestic rights to top-flight matches just sold for 6.6 mln pounds a game. Auction winners BSkyB and BT lost at least a billion pounds in combined market value. That implies the duo over-paid. It also reflects investor unease that the two are increasingly direct competitors.

Man Utd’s IPO transfer keeps owners in control

13 Jun 2012

The English soccer club may switch a $1 bln listing from Singapore to New York. So much for brand-building in Asia. Despite public indifference, U.S. investors will see value in a strong global franchise. And the owners can bring over the lopsided governance in the original plan.

U.S. basketball finals hold odd election allure

8 Jun 2012

Embattled Chesapeake boss Aubrey McClendon and Bain Capital’s Steve Pagliuca are respective part-owners of the Thunder and Celtics, teams still in the hunt to be champs. The White House winners’ fête would tickle a President Romney, but could prove awkward for a re-elected Obama.

Lululemon’s downward dog gnaws at yoga bubble

7 Jun 2012

The $9 bln maker of pricey sweatpants rattled investors’ chakras by warning of slower than expected sales and profit growth. Yoga may still be one of the world’s fastest-growing forms of exercise, but Lululemon’s stretched valuation is more about fashion than yogi proliferation.

The business of ice hockey has never been so good

21 May 2012

National Hockey League viewership and attendance has surged, revenue has reached $3.2 bln - even laggardly teams are getting their skates on. But you won’t hear the NHL boasting about it. Once the Stanley Cup is won, expect the gloves to come off between players and team owners.

BC Partners faces wrong kind of gym workout

2 May 2012

Just months ago Fitness First was set to IPO. Now distressed investors are taking control of the gym chain. Excess leverage and lean rivals left it out of shape. The restructuring will burn off most of private-equity owner BC Partners’ roughly 400-million-pound equity investment.

Why is IBM even sponsoring the Masters?

5 Apr 2012

Golf and business often mix well. But Augusta National remains an all-boys club. That defies IBM’s diversity aims - very noticeably so given its new CEO, Virginia Rometty. Even if the financial logic for sponsorship wasn’t fuzzy, the tech firm would be better off pulling the plug.

Dodger blue outshines gold after $2 bln deal

28 Mar 2012

The sale of the Los Angeles baseball team represents almost a five-fold gain in value since 2004. Gold aside, returns on sports franchises blow away most other major asset classes, including stocks. The demand for such trophy investments from the ultra-rich is stoking prices.

World Cup tells inconvenient truth on liquidity

14 Feb 2012

It’s hardly a surprise that World Cup soccer matches disrupted trading in financial markets. But if liquidity were as important as some fetishists claim, it wouldn’t have taken an ad-hoc ECB study to show what happened. The result should trouble opponents of transaction taxes.

Super Bowl may settle buy-side/sell-side rivalry

3 Feb 2012

New York’s Giants are set to battle the New England Patriots on the gridiron Sunday. The fixture reflects enmity between Wall Street’s banks and Boston’s investment industry. Since neither can crow much about performance of late, bragging rights for XLVI offer a big bonus.

BRICs raise relegation risk for European soccer

30 Dec 2011

World power must be shifting. Samuel Eto’o, a Cameroonian soccer star who used to play for Barcelona, has gone to Russia while Nicolas Anelka, a Frenchman, is moving from Chelsea to China. But both players are over 30. Europe, not the BRICs, still has first call on young talent.

Don’t boo U.S. football’s zero-coupon perpetuals

7 Dec 2011

The Green Bay Packers are selling shares that pay no dividend and can’t be sold. What sounds like a sucker’s bet - or a donation - at least gives fans a tangible stake in the local champs. And as it happens, since the team’s last sale, plenty of “real” stocks are down.

Russian infrastructure dreams sink in Sochi slush

4 Oct 2011

The spiralling cost of the 2014 Winter Olympics in the Black Sea resort illustrates the chaos endemic to Russia’s much-hyped sporting and infrastructure projects. Far from being a boon to the economy and investors, these opaque free-for-alls are a recipe for financial disaster.

Man U investors can always vote with their feet

20 Sep 2011

The soccer club may list in Singapore with “stapled” securities that could entrench the Glazer family’s control. But though new investors may not get the voting power they’d like, that can be reflected in the price. If the idea sounds too tricksy, would-be backers can say no.

Man U’s mooted IPO valuation in league of its own

24 Aug 2011

The Glazers bought the soccer club for a hefty 16 times EBITDA in 2005. Now a $1 bln Asian IPO could raise the bar again. Man Utd boasts global cachet and wage discipline by soccer’s crazy standards. But it looks like buyers will have to be fans first and investors second.

Hedge funds realize baseball is too big to fail

27 Jun 2011

JPMorgan's Highbridge is the latest to bail out a struggling team. Its $150 mln loan to the bankrupt Los Angeles Dodgers follows David Einhorn's New York Mets investment. Bad finance may be hurting the game's popularity but America's pastime still looks a good longterm bet.

Qatar’s hunger for soccer poses new pay TV threat

23 Jun 2011

Al Jazeera's bid for domestic rights to French football has robbed existing owner Vivendi's Canal+ of a bargain deal. Even if it is hard to see how the Qataribacked broadcaster will generate a return, its bold incursion could cost Europe's commercial operators dear.

Cup loss wouldn’t be end of the world for Qatar

31 May 2011

Even if it happened, losing the right to host the soccer World Cup might do no more than dent the $77 bln of infrastructure spending promised by the Gulf nation in the run up to 2022. But it would be more than just embarrassing to be stripped of the chance to hold the event.

Mets deal gets even a financial star starry-eyed

26 May 2011

David Einhorn, the hedge fund boss who famously shorted Lehman, is poised to buy a $200 mln stake in New York's lesser baseball team. Yet the managers of the Bernie Madoffstricken Mets share some of the bankrupt bank's flaws. Sports investments are just different.

Arsenal deal exposes unlevel U.S. sports field

11 Apr 2011

Stan Kroenke's $1.2 bln soccer club acquisition means half the British Premier League is now in foreign hands. By comparison, U.S. teams have few nonAmerican owners. That should finally start to change as wealth and sports like basketball increasingly globalize.