Some big-time #consolidation could be on the way.
Versant is shopping SportsEngine, according to The Information. The report (behind a paywall) said a deal is not guaranteed, but The Wrap followed up with news that interested parties have signed NDAs to dig into the business.
An Information source "familiar with SportsEngine’s financials" estimated its valuation in the ballpark of $150-200M, but the report said Versant — the new spinoff company Comcast created for most of NBCUniversal’s cable networks and digital assets — has not yet established a price tag.
FWIW: That sounds low. SportsEngine was valued at $133M in 2014, two years before it was acquired, and the youth sports tech space has been pegged at a $10B valuation in some places.
SportsEngine says it serves over 45K youth sports organizations, over 1.3M teams and over 16M athletes. And it has a presence in major facilities like LakePoint Sports. So a sale would be a massive event for the industry.
This is probably a situation that could break either way.
On one hand … It may not make sense for a cable TV company experiencing revenue and profit dips to be in the youth sports operations business.
On the other hand … SportsEngine’s financials are not separated out in reporting, but Versant’s digital assets have seen revenues grow (note: other holdings like Fandango and GolfNow are not for sale). And the streaming component could mesh well with the company’s sports media rights ambitions.
And could multiple deals be possible if the streaming component was broken out of the management platform?
As always: If you know something you would like to share, give us a shout!
Hoo boy.
Though not terribly surprising. Having spent every day for the last 8 months communicating with people in this space, SportsEngine is the major name I hear discussed least (along with “Little League”, whose existence feels quaint at this point).
Why? It’s not a pure play. While large in this industry, it is now an appendage of an appendage of Comcast-NBC-whatever-the-hell. It appears to have gotten caught in the choppy waters surrounding the Versant spinoff that included many of NBC Universal’s brands.
These are all just my outsider observations, but if you listen to my interview with Fastbreak CEO John Stewart, or my upcoming interview with another major player in this space tomorrow, you’ll hear business leaders who are fully meshed in youth sports, with a degree of operational autonomy. I imagine this same level of strategic thought or growth mindset is not happening at Versant.
There is no real “leader” on the product, as best as I can tell. You have NBC Sports Next and Fandango President Will McIntosh, who, according to his bio, oversees a whole bunch of stuff, including Fandango, Rotten Tomatoes, TeeOff, GolfNow, and SportsEngine. His last LinkedIn post was about Fandango giving kids free movie tickets.
And as we wrote here, that estimated valuation is either comically low, or SportsEngine’s growth has flattened to the point where it’s within an order of magnitude of its valuation from a decade ago.
The question is: Who are the potential buyers?
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