Excellence Seeks Excellence

For many years, club acquisitions were primarily associated with local entrepreneurs, passionate fans, or investors seeking notoriety. That paradigm has shifted, and with it, investors are now looking for a different kind of acquisition.

Today, various investment models coexist. The most prominent is Multi-Club Ownership, with groups like City Football Group, Red Bull, BlueCo, or Eagle Football, all aiming to create synergies between multiple clubs through a common strategy encompassing scouting, talent development, technology, and management.

Other models exist, with Private Equity perhaps being the most common. In these cases, the objective is to acquire a club or a stake, increase its value through improved management and performance, and then sell that asset for the highest possible financial return. The club is primarily viewed as an investment, and we've seen numerous instances of clubs changing hands repeatedly.

There are also operational holdings, Family Offices, and strategic investors who view sports as a business platform, integrating clubs, academies, media, technology, merchandising, events, and entertainment. Regardless of the model, one reality is here to stay: the level of demand has significantly increased.

Investors are no longer solely individuals with ties to football. Today, we find funds simultaneously investing in NBA, NFL, or Formula 1 clubs, families like the Pozzos (Udinese and Watford), and tech companies applying the same analytical criteria to sports that they use in other industries or economic sectors.

Furthermore, the acquisition process has become more sophisticated. Potential investors demand more and better financial information, governance models, performance indicators, sporting strategy, academy quality, organizational structure, development plans, and robust internal processes. Club offices must increasingly align with the demands and daily realities of the corporate world.

From what we're observing, this evolution will place greater demands on club executives and administrations in terms of their capabilities. Many clubs continue to operate with unsophisticated management models, while the investor profile is rapidly evolving.

Concurrently, the very concept of a sports asset or an asset within sports has changed. It's no longer just about buying a club; it's about looking beyond. Investors are acquiring a brand, a fan community, commercial rights, an organizational culture, intellectual property, content generation capacity, and international growth potential.

Groups like RedBird Capital, Arctos Sports Partners, or BlueCo demonstrate that sports have definitively become part of long-term investment portfolios, sometimes even with legacy objectives. This transformation will necessitate elevating the standard of sports management, and the unfortunate truth is that some executives still believe this change is yet to come, when in reality, it began years ago.

Investors seek excellence and understand that finding well-structured organizations is challenging in an ecosystem with many grey areas between traditional club associations and commercial entities. Conversely, many clubs unable to generate wealth are desperately seeking investors, even if they don't openly admit it. These are clubs that have used the same procedures for decades, in one of the fastest-changing business sectors.

This doesn't mean clubs will disappear. As Darwin might suggest, we're likely to witness a kind of natural selection among the best-prepared clubs. And as in any competitive market, those that adapt best and fastest across the various areas that now constitute a club will survive.

Perhaps that's why I advocate for discussing cases of mismanagement much more openly and dissecting the reasons, making them public. Not to expose individuals, although common denominators exist, but to learn from poor practices.

As fans, we remain far less tolerant and highly demanding of technical errors from athletes, while years of incompetent management decisions are easily forgotten by a goal or a ball hitting the post and going in.

The true competitive advantage is no longer solely about talent on the pitch; that idea is outdated. What increasingly matters, and what makes that on-field talent more valuable, is the quality of leadership, structure, and management. That's where a growing portion of sports organizations' success will be decided – having the right people in the right places. And those who buy will increasingly understand what kind of culture they'll find, or if they'll be able to create their own.