Recent Searches
Evan Lefkovitz and Scott Angilly also contributed to this article.
Valuations in the sports industry have consistently risen since the 1960s, supported by stable cash flow driven by loyal followers. High fan engagement, largely homegrown from historical, emotional and cultural attachment to teams and sports themselves, has resulted in cost-effective fan acquisition, and the absence of promotion and relegation in US leagues has provided downside protection even for underperforming teams.
More recently, technological advances and increased digital access have upped the game for investors. A dedicated consumer base seeking engagement opportunities, from traditional sports leagues to commercial spaces to service providers, presents a compelling proposition for value creation.
Over the past decade, sports franchise market valuations have delivered superior returns, materially outperforming benchmarks such as the S&P 500.1 Private equity (PE) investors who are increasingly seeking uncorrelated, inflation-resistant assets with strong brand equity are uncovering value in the sports industry. The upside isn’t limited to franchise equity. The widening sports ecosystem offers scalable, recurring revenue opportunities with attractive investment points.
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As sports fans engage through more touch points and channels than ever before, from streaming platforms to live events to digital communities, the sports investment landscape is evolving rapidly. These shifts are having an impact on media choices, technology innovations, localized participation and spending behaviors across a range of sports, consumer demographics and regions.
The lucrative media rights landscape has accelerated rights-fee growth, with fans willing to pay a premium for live sports — at a value of $29.2b in 2025, anticipated to grow at 5% YoY through 2030. Sports fan engagement continues to shift from physical, localized and community-based settings to digital mediums that offer new ways to engage, including “gamified” fan experiences, virtual reality (VR) experiences and high school sports streaming.
The 2026 EY Sports Engagement Index (SEI) evaluates how Americans interact with sports — how they watch, spend, participate, play and emotionally connect. By segmenting consumers based on actual behavior rather than assumptions, the SEI translates passion into predictable patterns to assess engagement and actionable intent to spend.
For PE investors, the investment landscape of the sports industry can be considered in three broad categories: sports, commercial partners and service partners.
Although investment in major league sports is long established, the broader and expanding ecosystem offers newer opportunities for PE. “Big Four” sports teams, soccer clubs, college sports and commercial rights valuations continue to rise and are countercyclical. This opens potential for minority investment in ongoing asset appreciation and portfolio diversification.
New and emerging sports categories, such as pickleball, cricket, esports, flag football and 3x3 basketball, have smaller engagement bases but a higher rate of fan growth, creating opportunities for majority investment in ongoing expansion. The proliferation of leagues, teams within these leagues, and participation organizations and events continue to scale up and grow in popularity.
Across the majority of sports surveyed, audience growth translates into commercial momentum. For instance, cricket posted 62.5% followership growth alongside 61.3% spend growth, while padel delivered the fastest audience expansion at 70.4%, supported by 55.6% growth in spend. In both cases, monetization is scaling in step with demand.
Other categories, such as weightlifting, darts, chess and pickleball, show the largest gaps between fan growth and commercial spend, signaling an under‑monetized ecosystem. Weightlifting (+51.5% vs. +26.0%) and darts (+44.9% vs. +20.0%) lead the gap, while chess and pickleball each show 20+ point differentials between followership and spend growth. These categories demonstrate opportunities where fan engagement can convert momentum into durable revenue.
Women’s sports fans consistently show stronger loyalty and commercial engagement than the broader sports audience.2 They are twice as likely to purchase products endorsed by female athletes, demonstrating a deeper connection to athlete‑driven brands. Viewership has tripled over the last three years.
The ecosystem also exhibits higher sponsor awareness, with women being 54% more likely to recognize sponsoring brands and 45% more likely to consider buying from those sponsors. Elevated loyalty, higher conversion intent and stronger sponsor recall make the category attractive for investment.
Fan-friendly venues and facilities position real estate as a significant investment option in the sports ecosystem. Opportunities to commercialize US stadium districts abound, with more than 30 major venue renovations currently being planned and around 40 leases set to expire over the next 15 years.
Sports-inspired mixed-use developments are expected to attract $100b in investment during that 15-year time frame.3 Private credit is increasingly financing these projects due to flexible valuation methods, specialized fee structures and capital requirements, and longer terms. Retail locations at mixed-use stadium developments earned 99% more revenue compared to the same chain locations in the surrounding market during the sports season at both collegiate and professional venues.
Tech-enabled sports entertainment venues are scaling up to meet demand for immersive, social and participatory experiences — such as simulated competitive play and multi-season indoor and outdoor experiences. As a destination for social occasions and regular gatherings, many of these have multisite rollout potential. This has been seen in established participatory sports categories like golf, emerging participatory categories like pickleball and immersive viewership experiences like competitive car racing.
Teams and leagues show increasing interest in accelerated technological innovation and adoption, bridging the gap between virtual and physical realities.
The post-COVID-19 landscape has also seen a surge in youth (ages 6–17) sports participation, driven by parents’ increased willingness to invest in organized sports. According to the Aspen Institute’s Project Play 2024 Parenting Survey,5 families spent 46% more on their child’s primary sport in 2024 compared to 2019. Youth sports organizations are funneling stable, recurring spending into clubs, camps and tournament operators and are frequently labeled as an “essential spend” category by families.
This category is also benefiting from the use of technology as high-growth content platforms are emerging to stream youth sports for players, coaches and family members in a professionalized setting.
Sports entities continue to rely heavily on third-party service partners to provide solutions that streamline operations, reduce complexity, promote efficiency and facilitate scaling growth. Nontraditional venues are partnering with immersive reality media agencies to create courtside‑style fan experiences and expand audience accessibility for those watching the games. Among active players, new experiences, such as artificial intelligence (AI)‑powered analysis hubs, create a premium engagement layer, monetizing skill development through personalized performance insights.
Teams and leagues show increasing interest in accelerated technological innovation and adoption. Leading solutions use tools like AI and computer vision to advance roster construction, game planning and on-field decision-making. Sports entities are also embedding technology into business functions and processes, leveraging new solutions to enhance business operations.
The EY Sports Engagement Index provides a powerful, behavior-driven view of how Americans connect with sports — and, by extension, how they spend, watch and adopt new products.
As the sports industry continues to influence an expanding set of consumer categories, PE firms can find a competitive advantage by seeing where demand is heading — and why — before the rest of the market catches up. Sports generate engagement that other assets don’t.
Read the full report for a deeper understanding of fan engagement and experience.
The current surge in US sports fan engagement and avenues opens up new investment opportunities for private equity.
