Yahoo Finance Sixth Street invested $125 million with an all-star roster to launch Bay FC women’s soccer team—and the team just sold out its first home game
Good morning! Fortune reporter Luisa Beltran here filling in for Allie.
Sixth Street is well-known on Wall Street for its growth and sports investments. But one way the firm is setting itself apart from the rest of Wall Street? Sixth Street is one of the first investment firms to launch a sports team from scratch. In fact, we’re pretty certain Sixth Street is the first (get in touch if you think we missed someone).
Last year, Sixth Street led an investor group that won the bid to launch the 14th team in the national women’s soccer league. The Sixth Street led consortium includes ex-Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg; Rick Welts, former Golden State Warriors president; Andre Iguodala, a four-time champion with the Golden State Warriors; as well as former USWNT players Brandi Chastain, Leslie Osborne, Danielle Slaton, and Aly Wagner. The group invested $125 million, including a $53 million expansion fee, which was considered a league record at the time. Sixth Street is the majority investor in Bay FC.
The investment seems to be working out. Last week, on March 30, Bay FC sold out its first home game in the Bay area, selling 18,000 tickets.
One reason Sixth Street can do such a deal is TAO, its massive, multi-strategy $27 billion evergreen pool of private capital. As I wrote for Fortune: “TAO is open-ended, which means it’s perpetual and flexible—it can do short-term or long-term investments—allowing Sixth Street to invest in basically anything. TAO has played a role in one of the biggest areas of investment on Wall Street: sports franchises. Alternative asset investors, including those in private equity, have emerged as one of the most active buyers of sports teams, mainly due to their skyrocketing valuations.”
In addition to Bay FC, Sixth Street owns a stake in the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs. (The firm also owns a piece of FC Barcelona’s TV rights and the stadium of Real Madrid in Spain’s top soccer league.) Expect Sixth Street to do more sports deals.
Sixth Street is also known for its growth unit, which has raised two funds. In 2019, the firm’s debut growth pool, which takes minority stakes in companies, collected $2.2 billion. That doubled to $4.4 billion with the second growth fund in 2022. The growth unit is run by coheads Mike McGinn and Robert “Bo” Stanley, both Sixth Street partners. Investments include Airbnb, Keyfactor, MasterControl, and MDLIVE.
The firm has also emerged as a haven for former Goldman Sachs executives who worked with Alan Waxman, Sixth Street’s CEO, co-CIO, and cofounder. Waxman spent a decade at Goldman, where he ran and became CIO of the Americas special situations group, or AmSSG. He helped launch Sixth Street in 2009. You can read my full story and interview with Waxman about the firm’s future here.
Talk to you tomorrow,
Luisa Beltran
Twitter: @LuisaRBeltran
Email: luisa.beltran@fortune.com
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Joe Abrams curated the deals section of today’s newsletter.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
