"Buying at the Bottom" Global Heavyweights Dive into Football... This Time, It's Italy's Serie A

Carlyle, Bain Capital, and Others Move to Invest in Serie A

'Buying at the Bottom' to Revive Past Glory

Funds Have Already Flowed into the EPL and La Liga

Global private equity fund (PEF) managers are making deep investments into European football. Following earlier moves into the English Premier League (EPL), Spain's La Liga, and France's Ligue 1, Italy's Serie A has now emerged as a new investment target. Analysts note that while Serie A, once the epicenter of European football, is in a period of stagnation, global PEFs are viewing this as a ‘buy low’ opportunity.

At Allianz Stadium in Turin, Italy, on September 6, 2026, Juventus FC players and AC Milan's Luka Modric are contesting the ball during a Serie A match. Photo by Yonhap News Agency

According to recent major international news reports, the Carlyle Group and Bain Capital are currently reviewing a minority stake investment in the entity that holds Serie A’s overseas broadcasting rights. Oaktree Capital, which owns last season’s Serie A champion Inter Milan, and domestic Italian fund manager Nexthalia are also said to be interested bidders. JP Morgan is supervising the deal.

Investors are considering acquiring a 10–20% stake in this entity, which oversees Serie A's overseas broadcasting rights as well as its international betting and sponsorship business. The entity’s annual EBITDA is around 200 million euros. The entity’s total valuation is reportedly in the range of 3 to 4 billion euros (approximately 4.73 trillion to 6.30 trillion won) if the entire stake was considered. Should the deal succeed, it would mark the first large-scale PEF investment in broadcasting rights at the Italian football league level.

Back in 2021, Serie A also explored selling a stake in its domestic broadcasting rights business to a consortium led by CVC Capital Partners, with the deal size being discussed at 1.7 billion euros at the time. However, the deal ultimately fell through due to a lack of sufficient support from the clubs.

Kim Minjae, who was with Napoli at the time, is competing for a header with AS Roma forward Tammy Abraham during the 18th round home match of the 2022-2023 Serie A season held at the Diego Maradona Stadium in Napoli, Italy. Photo by Yonhap News Agency

PE Capital Flows Sweeping Through European Football

Global PEF investments in European football have already been successful on multiple occasions. One of the most prominent examples is Spain's La Liga. In 2021, La Liga's clubs approved a 1.994 billion euro investment by CVC. CVC acquired an 8.2% stake in a new entity that receives La Liga broadcasting and sponsorship revenues. The capital was structured to support club infrastructure upgrades, digital transformation, and debt reduction. While major clubs such as Real Madrid and Barcelona opposed it, most clubs opted to accept the capital injection.

France’s Ligue 1 has taken a similar path. In 2022, CVC acquired a 13% stake in the broadcasting business entity of the French Professional Football League (LFP) for 1.5 billion euros. Faced with post-pandemic financial challenges, French clubs sought to secure liquidity by sharing a portion of future long-term revenues with external investors.

Club-level investments have also been very active. In Italy, RedBird Capital acquired AC Milan from Elliott in 2022 for 1.2 billion euros. Inter Milan also changed hands in 2024 when the Chinese Suning Group failed to repay 395 million euros to Oaktree, resulting in Oaktree taking over club ownership. As for the EPL's Chelsea, the club was sold in 2022 for 4.25 billion pounds (about 7.79 trillion won, covering both equity and planned investment) to a consortium led by Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital. Football is no longer merely a hobby or trophy asset for private owners. It has transformed into an alternative investment asset that combines broadcasting rights, sponsorships, stadium revenue, data, and fandom.

The Downside-Protected Case for International Sports Investment

The reasons PEFs are focusing on sports are relatively clear. While short-term results can vary based on game outcomes, fandom is highly stable and rarely departs. Once someone becomes a fan of a particular club or league, they often remain a consumer for many years. Revenue streams are also diverse, ranging from broadcasting rights and sponsorships to tickets, merchandise (club-related products), stadium real estate, and data businesses.

JP Morgan Asset Management, in a report published at the end of last year, analyzed that sports teams and related businesses can provide both stability and diversification in alternative investment portfolios. The report noted that as TV and streaming platforms fiercely compete for viewer attention by acquiring sports broadcasting rights, those rights have become an attractive source of cash flow for investors.

In the United States, pro sports leagues have already opened their doors to PEFs in a systematic way. In 2024, NFL team owners approved specific PEFs to acquire equity stakes in teams. However, PEF ownership in any single team is capped at 10%, and only pre-approved fund managers may invest. Other top U.S. leagues—including the NBA, MLB, and NHL—have long permitted minority institutional investment. JP Morgan estimates the aggregate value of teams in the top four major U.S. professional leagues approaches 500 billion dollars (about 680 trillion won), with the average NFL team valued at around 7 billion dollars.

Source = JP Morgan Asset Management and PitchBook

Why Is Serie A a ‘Buy-Low’ Target?

The rise of Serie A as an investment target is rooted in both positives and negatives. Until the 1990s and early 2000s, Serie A stood at the very center of European football. Clubs such as AC Milan, Inter Milan, Juventus, and AS Roma remain storied clubs with global fandom.

While the league still boasts historical depth and a wealth of stories, its commercial competitiveness has weakened. According to Deloitte, the total revenue of EPL clubs for the 2024–2025 season reached 6.8 billion pounds. In contrast, Serie A managed only around 3 billion euros. Thus, the Premier League more than doubles Serie A in market scale.

The gap in overseas broadcasting rights is also significant. Serie A's overseas broadcasting rights business reportedly generates about 250 million euros in annual revenue. EPL surpasses 2 billion euros, while La Liga is said to achieve around 800 million euros.

On the 28th of last month, crowds gathered at San Siro, the home stadium of AC Milan. Photo by AFP News Agency

Club infrastructure remains a key weakness as well. Many major Italian clubs continue to rely on outdated stadiums still owned by local governments. Delays in stadium modernization and the shift toward multi-use entertainment venues have made it difficult to diversify and expand revenue streams from matchday sales, premium seating, events, and tourism.

Ironically, PEFs see these weaknesses as opportunities. By improving overseas marketing, stadium monetization, sponsorship packages, and digital content, they believe greater cash flows could be generated from the same assets. Serie A’s player acquisition structure also factors into the investment rationale. The Italian league has traditionally served as a gateway to Europe for players from South America, Eastern Europe, and Africa. By strengthening global broadcasting and digital distribution, the league could leverage its scouting network and storied brands to craft a turnaround narrative.

However, sports investment is not always successful. League-wide broadcasting rights investments are particularly complicated due to complex interests. Challenges arise over how revenues are distributed to each club, long-term profit-sharing, fan backlash, and concerns about league governance. La Liga’s CVC deal, for example, went ahead despite opposition from Real Madrid and Barcelona. Even in Ligue 1, the CVC deal provided short-term liquidity but was later criticized amid declining broadcasting rights values and questions over league competitiveness.

Serie A is likely to face similar problems. In order to increase the league’s overall overseas broadcasting revenue, it will need strong centralized sales capacity and long-term investment, yet individual clubs will inevitably focus on their own payouts and control. The failure of the 2021 CVC consortium’s domestic broadcasting deal due to insufficient club consent is a clear example. As the current deal also requires approval from at least 14 clubs, whether it will actually be finalized remains an open question.

“If Only We Had Invested Back Then”…KIC's Attempted LA Dodgers Purchase

Shohei Ohtani of the LA Dodgers AP Yonhap News

There have been cases in Korea where missed opportunities for sports asset investment have led to regret. In 2015, Korea Investment Corporation (KIC), the country’s sovereign wealth fund, considered acquiring about a 19% stake in the LA Dodgers for over 400 billion won. At the time, KIC reportedly considered not only acquiring a stake from Guggenheim Partners (the club's owner) but also joining various media contracts that included ticket sales and broadcasting rights, with a guaranteed minimum annual return of 3%. However, concerns about liquidity and profitability emerged when it became known that returns and principal could potentially remain locked for up to ten years, eventually escalating into a request for an official audit by the National Assembly. As a result, KIC’s LA Dodgers deal was ultimately cancelled.

In hindsight, this is now seen by some as an unfortunate decision. The Guggenheim consortium purchased the LA Dodgers in 2012 for about 2.0 to 2.15 billion dollars. Forbes valued the Dodgers at 7.8 billion dollars as of March 2026. In simple equity terms, if KIC had secured its 19% stake for about 400 million dollars at the time, that stake would be worth as much as 1.5 billion dollars today. The episode highlights how the scarcity value of sports assets—where fandom, broadcasting rights, stadium revenue, and global content all converge—was likely underestimated.

Could such PEF capital flows into the Korean sports market? Among domestic PEF professionals, the outlook is mostly skeptical. One industry insider commented, “Sports itself is an appealing asset class, but in the U.S. the deal sizes and valuations have become so large that there is no easy entry for new players. Conversely, in Korea, both league and club revenues are too small and upward growth is not assured, making it hard for PEFs to view the Korean market as worthwhile.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.