Arctos Partners just bought 10% of the Atlanta Falcons for $1.06 billion. The Falcons. Not the Chiefs. Not the Cowboys. The team that blew a 28-3 lead in the Super Bowl and made it everyone's personality for six years.
The enterprise value here is $10.6 billion. That's billion with a b. The same franchise that plays in a stadium with a giant butthole for a roof is now worth more than the GDP of Montenegro. Private equity looked at Matt Ryan's ghost haunting the Georgia Dome and said yeah, we'll take a slice of that trauma.
Here's what $1.06 billion buys you. Minority ownership in a team that went 7-10 last season. No control. No say in personnel decisions. Just the privilege of watching Arthur Blank wear tracksuits on the sideline while Desmond Ridder completes 58% of his passes. You could've bought 10,000 Bitcoin. You could've started a pharmaceutical company. Instead you get to tell people at cocktail parties that you technically own a piece of the Falcons.
The deal values the team higher than most S&P 500 companies. Higher than Marriott. Higher than CME Group. The Falcons generate maybe $600 million in revenue per year if you round up and squint. But sure, let's slap an 18x revenue multiple on it because private equity knows something retail doesn't. They know how to convince someone else to buy their 10% stake in three years at an even dumber valuation.
Arctos specializes in buying minority stakes in sports teams. Their whole business model is paying obscene prices for assets they can't control in markets they can't exit. It's like buying a timeshare except the timeshare loses to the Buccaneers twice a year.
The best part? Somewhere right now a guy with $8,000 in Robinhood is reading this thinking he should've bought Falcons stock.
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