Celebrity-backed investment firm Avenue Capital Group seeks to raise more than $1 billion.
According to a press release, Marc Lasry and Sonia Gardner’s Avenue Capital Group established a sports investment fund in October 2023 to provide capital to sports leagues and teams in North America and Europe. The fund intends to extend its reach to Africa, Asia, South America, and Australia.
The fund also plans to supply financial solutions to sports teams, owners, and leagues and invest in sports media, entertainment rights, real estate, and associated ventures, per the press release.
Notable names supporting the venture include Stephen Curry, Lauren Holiday, Harry Kane, Candace Parker, Michael Strahan, and Lindsey Vonn.
“We built out the company advisory board of athletes who are part of our company… Lauren Holiday, Candace Parker, Harry Kane over in Europe, and Steph Curry,” said Strahan during an interview with Forbes at the 2024 Forbes Iconoclast Summit. “It’s interesting ’cause it was kind of my job to call most of them to say, ‘Hey, are you interested in this?’ But it was also important to pick the right people… All of us are workers, and as goes to the model HLY, hustle like you’re broke, and that’s what we do as athletes on the field and that’s what we’re doing now in this space.”
Curry and Strahan’s involvement helped Avenue Capital Group’s sports investment fund pool their first investment in the Bay Golf Club, Sonia Gardner, Avenue Capital Group’s president, managing partner, and co-founder, told Forbes. The team is under Tiger Woods’ tech-infused golf league TGL.
“Michael was instrumental in helping us get that, as well as Steph Curry, because the team is in San Francisco,. It’s the Bay Golf Club,” Gardner told Forbes. “They really work hard, so with TGL it was a tie… They had put a price that they wanted and there was multiple firms that wanted to be involved and Michael and Steph Curry both kind of worked it from behind the scenes, and that’s how we got that.”
To further the fund’s efforts, it has secured $500 million in funding and is looking to surpass $1.5 billion through additional funding that will extend into 2025.
“We just had a close, and we raised $500 million,” Gardner told Forbes. “We just started really having our first close at the very end of November… We’re going to have multiple closes in the summer and then the fall [and] into next year. So, it’s going to be an 18-month fundraise — the ultimate goal is a billion and a half.”
