Goldman Sachs Wants Its Wealthiest Clients to Buy Sports Teams

A general view of a baseball game as J.T. Realmuto of the Philadelphia Phillies bats against Mason Thompson of the Washington Nationals during the eighth inning at Nationals Park on June 04, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Jess Rapfogel/Getty Images)

Greg Carey and Dave Dase will lead Goldman Sachs’ new Sports Franchise in Investment Banking division.

As the wealthiest of the wealthy in sports, business, and beyond continue to gravitate toward sports ownership, Goldman Sachs is looking to make it a little easier for prospective owners. The investment bank is creating a global sports franchise division aimed to assist its highest net worth clients buy stakes in professional clubs, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

Executives Greg Carey and Dave Dase will head up the new Sports Franchise in Investment Banking division, working with the existing asset and wealth management team. WSJ reports their clients will span the globe, covering industries from sports to media, tech, and entertainment. This comes in an effort for Goldman Sachs to create more structure around its sports franchise offerings, combining its sports mergers and acquisitions practice with the sports financing group.

As Boardroom’s Sam Dunn and Shlomo Sprung previously pointed out, American sports franchises are about as close to a sure investment as you’re going to get, appreciating at a higher rate than both inflation and the S&P 500. That includes NBA teams, whose 2022 valuations increased by an average of 15% from 2021. That’s undoubtedly a major reason why so many athletes and other wealthy entrepreneurs have turned to sports ownership.

Goldman Sachs, for its part, is no stranger to facilitating these deals for investment groups. Most notably in 2020, AS Roma hired the bank to find a new buyer for the club. Goldman then helped broker the $700 million deal to Friedkin Group.

With Friday’s news, shares of Goldman Sachs are currently up 0.8% as of this writing.