体育行业的融资缺口：解锁 2.5 万亿美元机遇

The Financing Gap in Sports: Unlocking a$2.5 Trillion Opportunity December 2025 Al Tylis,CEO,Apollo SportsCapitalLee Solomon,Partner, Co-PortfolioManager, ApolloSports CapitalRobert Givone,Partner, Co-PortfolioManager, ApolloSports CapitalSam Porter,Chief StrategyOfficerApolloSports CapitalJack CleverleyManaging Director,Apollo SportsCapitalTal Barak Harif,Managing Editor,Apollo ThematicInvesting K E Y TA K E AWAYS A $2.5 Trillion Global Industry: The business of sports has evolved from ticket sales and local sponsorships into a$2.5 trillion-plus global ecosystem spanning media, merchandise, wellness, and live entertainment, powered by scalable,multi-channel monetization. Media Rights as the Growth Engine:Live sports remain unmatched in drawing mass audiences, driving long-term, inflation-linked media contracts worth over $60 billion annually. These rights underpin franchise valuations and deliver durable,infrastructure-like revenue streams. Institutional Capital Enters the Game:As franchise valuations outpaced the capacity of individual owners, leagues openedthe door to private equity, pension, and sovereign investors—elevating sports into an institutional-grade asset class.Participation remains in its early innings, creating first-mover advantages for investors who can navigate league structures,build credibility, and price risk ahead of broader normalization. Durable, Scarce, and Culturally Entrenched:Sports assets demonstrate exceptional resilience, compounding at roughly 13%annually over six decades. Their scarcity, global reach, and emotional fan loyalty make them uniquely resistant to technologicaland macro disruption. Financing Opportunity Ahead:Traditional lenders have long treated the sector as niche, leaving inefficiencies and gaps in thecapital stack. Despite record valuations, most franchises remain under-levered at roughly 10% loan-to-value, creating vastpotential for hybrid and private credit solutions to unlock liquidity, optimize balance sheets, and capture equity-like upsidewith credit-like risk. I) Introduction From the Olympics to the NFL to Europe’s top football leagues, sports history captures the triumphs of athletes and teams thathave pushed the boundaries of human achievement. Usain Bolt’s electrifying sprint in London, Michael Phelps’s record medalhaul in Beijing, and Nadia Comaneci’s perfect 10 in Montreal each set new standards for individual excellence. In tennis, SerenaWilliams’s 23 Grand Slam titles redefined what dominance and longevity mean in the modern era. In the NFL, Jerry Rice’s careerreceiving totals and Tom Brady’s seven Super Bowl wins exemplify sustained excellence, while in European football, LionelMessi’s 91 goals in a single year and Arsenal’s “Invincibles” season remain enduring symbols of perfection. Just as athletes and teams have reset what is possible on the field, the business of sports is breaking records of its own.Franchise valuations, media rights, sponsorship deals, and global fan engagement are reaching levels once thought out of reach.The valuations of NBA teams have grown over 10x in the past 20 years, the global sports media rights market surpassed $60billion in 2024 (up roughly 12% year-over-year), and the global sponsorship market—currently approaching $100 billion annually—is expected to double in the next decade.1The same drive for performance that fuels world-class athletes now powers a rapidlyexpanding ecosystem of investment opportunities(Exhibit 1, 2, 3). Sports transcend cultures and time—rooted in thousands ofyears of history since the first Olympic Games in ancientGreece and is woven today into the fabric of nearly everysociety. Despite its history, global reach and record-breakinggrowth,the sports industry remains underfunded,under-levered, and under-capitalized. Traditional lenders and equityinvestors have long treated the sector as a niche, leading to aninefficient market structure and significant financing gaps inthe middle of the capital stack. We see opportunity in bridgingthat divide through hybrid and private credit solutions. As themarket matures, capital structures will normalize, and investorswith the flexibility to play across debt and equity will be bestpositioned to capture the full value of the growth ahead.In thiswhite paper, we explore why financing the business of sportshas become one of the most compelling growth stories of ourtime—and where the next records are waiting to be broken. II) The Scale of the Opportunity For most of the 20thcentury, the economic reach of sports was relatively narrow. Teams and leagues generated revenue primarilyfrom ticket sales, concessions, and local sponsorships. The value of a franchise was tied closely to matchday attendance and thephysical capacity of a stadium. A “sellout crowd” was the Over time, however, the monetization of sports has expandeddramatically(Exhibit 4). The rise of television in the mid-20thcentury unlocked media rights as a scalable revenue sourcefor t