Excel Sports Management Acquisition, Valuation, Funding & Investors

Suning Sports is the sports arm of Chinese retail and property conglomerate Suning Holdings Group, headquartered in Nanjing, Jiangsu, and incorporated as Jiangsu Suning Sports Industry Co., a joint venture of Suning Holdings, which owned 90% at the end of 2016, and Suning Appliance Group. It built a business spanning sports media, over-the-top streaming, sports retail and youth training. Its digital platform PP Sports bought Chinese broadcast rights to major football competitions, including the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, Ligue 1, the Chinese Super League and, from 2018-19, exclusive television and online rights to the Bundesliga for five seasons, along with AFC competitions and WWE, earning revenue from subscriptions and advertising. It opened its first flagship fan store in Nanjing in 2017, planning 152 stores by 2020, and developed grassroots training programmes. Through its Hong Kong subsidiary Suning Sports International, it sits above Great Horizon, the vehicle through which Suning bought a majority stake in Inter Milan in 2016, and the group also owned Chinese Super League club Jiangsu Suning. In July 2018 Suning Sports raised a $600 million Series A led by Goldman Sachs and Alibaba, with Evergrande, Yunfeng Capital, SenseTime, CCB International and others, valuing it at about $2.6 billion. Under financial strain, Suning halted operations at its Chinese football clubs, including champions Jiangsu, in February 2021.

WME is a talent agency headquartered at 9601 Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills, in the Los Angeles area, that represents artists, content creators and talent across film, television, music, theatre, books, digital media, fashion, food, comedy and sports. It negotiates deals for clients, advises them on brand partnerships, production and the use of their intellectual property, and earns commissions on the work it books. Besides its Los Angeles headquarters it has offices in New York, Nashville, Chicago, Washington, Miami, London and Sydney. WME was formed in April 2009 by the merger of the William Morris Agency, whose history the agency dates back more than 125 years, and Endeavor Talent Agency, with Ari Emanuel and Patrick Whitesell as co-chief executives. Silver Lake bought a 31.25% stake for $250 million in 2012, and WME and Silver Lake acquired IMG for $2.4 billion in 2013. In 2017 the parent was renamed Endeavor and WME continued as its talent agency, while agency deals such as Ross Yoon in 2023 extended its literary business. Silver Lake completed its take-private of Endeavor in March 2025, after which the group rebranded as the WME Group.

OneFootball is a German football media and technology company headquartered in Berlin, operating as OneFootball GmbH. It was founded in Bochum in 2008 by Lucas von Cranach, who in 2009 launched the iLiga app that was later renamed and merged under the OneFootball brand. Its free app and website combine live scores, statistics, news and video from more than 200 leagues in multiple languages, produced by a Berlin newsroom, and the company also streams matches directly through the app, starting in 2019 with La Liga in the UK via Eleven Sports and 2. Bundesliga and DFB-Pokal games in Germany via Sky. OneFootball makes money mainly from advertising and brand partnerships, together with OTT streaming, publishing and services for clubs, leagues, federations and players; it says more than 200 million fans use the platform each month. In 2020 it acquired the video platform Dugout, bringing its founding clubs, including Arsenal, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Liverpool, Manchester City, PSG and Real Madrid, in as shareholders. In April 2022 it raised €300 million in a Series D led by Liberty City Ventures with Animoca Brands and Dapper Labs to expand into Web3, then cut its workforce to about 240 after the crypto downturn; Patrick Fischer became chief executive in 2023.

Alisports (阿里体育, now renamed Orange Lion Sports) is the sports arm of Alibaba Group, founded in Shanghai's Yangpu district in September 2015 by Alibaba with Sina and Yunfeng Capital. It was led from its founding by chief executive Zhang Dazhong, a former vice president of Shanghai Media Group. It was set up to apply Alibaba's e-commerce, media, cloud computing, big data and payments capabilities to China's sports industry. Early businesses included event rights and operations, ticketing, sports e-commerce and broadcasting. In 2016 it launched the World Electronic Sports Games (WESG) esports tournament with the International e-Sports Federation, and the first edition drew about 63,000 participants from 125 countries. It won exclusive operating and marketing rights to the Hangzhou Marathon for 2018 to 2021 and has run China's university basketball league (CUBAL). In April 2017 it raised a Series A of about RMB 1.2 billion (roughly US$190 million) led by Yunfeng Capital. In 2022 it renamed itself Orange Lion Sports (橙狮体育) and now focuses on running and upgrading public sports venues under the 乐动力 (Le Dong Li) brand. These include centres in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Chongqing, Chengdu and Shenzhen.

KingMakers is a Nigerian online sports betting and digital entertainment company based in Lagos that operates the BetKing brand and was formerly known by that name. It offers sports betting and online games to African customers through its website and apps and through an agent network, which lets individuals earn income by serving customers in their communities. The company earns revenue from betting margins on the wagers it takes; revenue rose from $131 million in 2022 to $198 million in 2023, while losses grew from $19 million to $28 million as it invested to scale and faced losses on moving cash out of Nigeria. South African pay-TV group MultiChoice bought a 20% stake in September 2020 for R1.9 billion (about $112 million) and raised it to 49% in 2021 for a further $281.5 million, aiming to use its sports broadcasting to grow the betting business; according to KingMakers, 77% of DStv subscribers bet or make match predictions. In 2023 MultiChoice wrote down the investment by R2 billion, citing naira devaluation and expansion costs. KingMakers dropped planned expansions into Kenya and Ethiopia and hired Ronnie Whelan as chief operating officer. Its corporate parent is AGV Holdings Limited.

Vidio is an Indonesian over-the-top video streaming service based in Jakarta, operated by PT Vidio Dot Com and owned by broadcaster Surya Citra Media, part of the Emtek media group. It offers free-to-air and paid live television, films and series, Vidio Original productions and, since 2025, short-form Vidio Mini Drama, alongside extensive live sport: it is the exclusive digital broadcaster of the English Premier League in Indonesia from 2022-23 to 2027-28 and has streamed the 2022 FIFA World Cup, FIFA youth World Cups and Formula One. Revenue comes from Vidio Premier subscription packages, advertising on its free tier, and content distribution. The platform launched on 15 October 2014 as an Indonesian counterpart to YouTube built on user-generated and Emtek TV content, grew to about 40 million active users by 2020, and in 2022 was recognised as Indonesia's largest video-on-demand provider, ahead of Netflix, Disney+ Hotstar and Amazon Prime Video. Originally owned by Kreatif Media Online, it was taken over by Surya Citra Media, with Emtek having invested IDR 240 billion by March 2019. In 2022 Vidio raised US$45 million from strategic investors led by Sinar Mas group's Dian Swastatika Sentosa through PT DSST Mas Gemilang, with Grab and Bali United's investment arm also participating.

Plan B Media PCL is principally engaged in providing advertising media production, advertising space, and airtime rental services. The group has two principal reportable segments, which are the Out-of-home media segment comprising advertising media production, advertising space and airtime rental services, and Engagement marketing segment comprising sports marketing and artist management. The majority of its revenue is derived from the Out-of-home media segment.

Entravision Communications Corp owns and operates Spanish language television and radio stations in the United States. The Company also owns and operates a smaller group of television stations that broadcast English language programming and has operations that provide programmatic advertising technology and services. The Company has organized its operations into two reportable segments. Its media segment includes its television, radio, and digital marketing operations. Its advertising and technology services segment provides programmatic advertising and technology services. The company generates the majority of its revenue from the Media segment. Geographically, the company generates the majority of its revenue from the United States.

Freechat is a decentralized social network on blockchain with DID verification, NFT integration, and AI-driven content recommendations via machine learning. Users post updates, join communities, play games, and make encrypted payments in crypto. Freechat's platform hosts UGC, smart contract ads, and privacy tools across distributed ledgers for global access.

Hootsuite is a Vancouver-headquartered social media management platform used by enterprises for scheduling, analytics, and engagement across Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and TikTok. The software supports team collaboration, content calendars, and AI-driven listening to track brand mentions and trends. Hootsuite serves over 18 million users with integrations for CRM systems like Salesforce.

Aston Martin F1 Team is a British Formula One constructor based at Silverstone, Northamptonshire, that races as the Aston Martin Aramco Formula One Team. It is owned and operated by AMR GP Limited, a company set up on 2 August 2018 as Racing Point UK Limited by an investment consortium led by Lawrence Stroll to take over the Force India team from administration; the Silverstone operation traces its origins to Jordan Grand Prix, founded in 1991. After Stroll took a 16.7% stake in carmaker Aston Martin in January 2020, the Racing Point F1 Team was rebranded as Aston Martin for the 2021 season. The team competes with title partner Aramco, and its drivers since 2023 have been two-time world champion Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll. It switched from Mercedes customer engines to a Honda works partnership in 2026, with Adrian Newey as team principal and managing technical partner and Lawrence Stroll as chairman. The team had about 800 employees by 2023, when private equity firm Arctos Partners acquired a minority stake at a valuation of about £1 billion. Aston Martin had first entered Formula One in 1959 and 1960 with its own DBR4 and DBR5 cars.

Cannae Holdings is an American holding company and principal investor headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker CNNE. William P. Foley II is its vice chairman and Ryan Caswell its chief executive. It takes minority and majority stakes in restaurants, technology-enabled services, financial services and, increasingly, sports and entertainment. Its main holdings include about 42% of Black Knight Football Club, which owns AFC Bournemouth, FC Lorient and a majority of Moreirense, and a 50% stake in the activist hedge fund manager JANA Partners. It also owns a restaurant group made up of 88.5% of Ninety Nine Restaurant & Pub and 65.4% of O'Charley's, along with interests in the flavourings maker Watkins (acquired in 2024) and Alight. In 2025 it sold its Dun & Bradstreet stake to Clearlake Capital for total proceeds of US$630 million and bought back US$323 million of its own stock. Its board has since said it will concentrate the portfolio on sports and entertainment, and in June 2026 its Black Knight Rugby subsidiary acquired English rugby club Exeter Chiefs. It earns returns from equity-accounted investments and consolidated operating revenue, and has about 6,600 employees.

Pickleball Inc. is an American professional pickleball company that owns the Carvana PPA Tour and Major League Pickleball, the sport's two leading professional competitions. It was formed in 2026 by combining the two tours with the retailer Pickleball Central, the tournament-software platform PickleballTournaments.com, the consumer portal Pickleball.com, the court builder Just Courts and the channel Pickleball TV. The business earns revenue from media rights, sponsorship, events, retail sales and software, and on a combined basis its units generated more than $140 million of revenue in 2025. It has more than 150 signed professional players and more than $33 million of combined annual prize money, its platforms hosted 4,500 tournaments and 2,000 league seasons in 2025, and a PPA Tour broadcast on CBS in January 2026 averaged 791,000 viewers. On 1 May 2026 Apollo Sports Capital, an investment platform of Apollo Global Management, led a $225 million structured investment in the company. Tom Dundon and the Pardoe family remain the majority shareholders, and PPA Tour founder Connor Pardoe is chief executive.

APG SGA SA is a Swiss out-of-home advertising media company. As a media company, it transports advertising messages into public and private areas with posters, screens, and related media as promotions and mobile advertising. This media performance is generated in streets, city centers, pedestrian zones, railway stations, shopping centers, airports, tourist resorts, and on the outside and inside of public transport vehicles. The company's regional segments are Switzerland, and Serbia, out of which a majority of its revenue comes from Switzerland.