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Globally, sports generate a whopping $91 billion a year. That’s a hell of a lot of money and you might be thinking you could get a slice of the action. Just look at the explosive growth of the fitness industry as an example of this – read more about that here. Or look at how valuable football clubs like Man Utd earn each season. We’ve really come a far, far way from the days of sponsorship with Pooh jeans.
Business Of Sport has pulled out some ways you could make an investment into sports.
How Can I Invest In Sports?
- Stocks: If a sports team is a PLC, you can buy shares in your favourite team. For example, Manchester United are a PLC and their stocks can be bought.
- Company stocks: Again, much like teams, you can you can buy stocks of the companies that own particular sports, such as Liberty Media, who own Formula 1, or the WWE.
- eSports Stocks: Much like the above, you can invest in companies operating in the eSport area. For example, you could invest in companies like Tecent Holding, creators of League of Legends, the most popular eSports game on the planet.
- Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs): Some ETF funds actually focus on investing in sports too.
New Ways To Make Investments In Sports?
Bitcoin
As per SportTechie’s story, some athletes are now being paid in bitcoin. However, as of yet, bitcoin investment in sports hasn’t taken off. Instead, it is being primarily used for gambling reasons.
However, the London Football Exchange (LFE) is set to launch a cryptocurrency that is intended to allow a fan-driven football community the opportunity to take part in various club and fan experiences from match day tickets, tours, and player meet and greets, to specific merchandise and third-party partner offers.
Discussions are already underway with over 50 clubs including UK Premier League Clubs and some of the most prominent teams throughout Europe, USA and Australia.
Charles Pittar, Corporate CEO of London Football Exchange said:
“Our vision is to allow football clubs to take advantage of the token funding economy for their financing needs by providing them with a tokenised financing infrastructure which involves token design and issuance services.”
Asset Class
According to German bank Donner & Reuschel, professional sports is now “an investable asset class for the first time”.
The bank has created a fund to allow people to invest in global sports. It invests in the commercial aspects of sports with a particular focus on football and entertainment rights.
Thomas Ronfeld, at Donner & Reuschel said of the new fund: “With this innovative idea, we are giving investors access to a brand new asset class that was previously only available to private equity firms and corporations.”
Be Careful With Investments In Sports
Before deciding anything, remember, if you do invest money in sports, your capital is at risk and you may end up with losses from these investments. For transparency too, this is not a sponsored post and the author only has shares invested in Celtic Football Club.
