Unofficial Partner Podcast
Unofficial Partner Podcast
UP512 Other People's Money: APEX, the athlete investor trend, Red Bull Ventures, Baller and TGL
Joining Richard and Matt Rogan is António Caçorino, founder & CEO of APEX, the sports fund manager known for its roster of over 70 athletes across 15 sports and 30+ leagues. Famous names attached to the fund include Formula 1 drivers Lando Norris (McLaren), Carlos Sainz (Ferrari) and Valtteri Bottas, footballers Raphaël Varane (Manchester United/France), Christian Eriksen and Mason Mount (Manchester United), Jan Vertonghen, Daley Blind, Luuk de Jong and John Stones (Manchester City).
The Portuguese investment company has deployed capital in elite sports ventures such as TMRW SPORTS, the company behind TGL golf, technology companies Playsight and ScorePlay.
Other investments include Baller League, €23 million ($24.1 million) in series A funding into the creator meets football startup.
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people always love to know the names. Formula One drivers like uh, Carlos Sz, land Norris football players like Rafael Veran and, Marcelo the real Madrid legend. like Mark Cavendish and Demi ing one of the best female cyclists currently in the world. Surfers skaters model, gp, riders. You name it, it's a, a really broad range of, of athletes more than, or almost 200 now from 17 different sports.
That was Antonio Kaino, who is founder and CEO of Apex Capital, who is orchestrating what might be one of the most interesting experiments in sports investment. It's best known for, its. involving athletes in the investment process, but as we see that isn't just what's going on here. So we get into the detail of what the Apex Fund is where the money comes from. We mentioned Red Bull, which is a recent piece of news. Red Bull as in BULL. They have come in as a significant investor in the fund, and then we ask where the money goes. So this is part of a conversation that we've been having on, Unofficial Partner, and particularly in other people's money, where we talk about the flows of money and where the money is coming from, where it's going. we are joined by my regular other People's Money co-host Matt Rogan, as you'll hear. there's a lot in here and I think you'll enjoy it. If you haven't heard the other episodes from other people's money, I can put those in the show notes for you, or you can read about it in the Unofficial Partner Substack newsletter, which comes out on a Thursday every week. And it's, uh, very good. I hear.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:so first of all, I'm gonna say hello to Matt Rogan, my old mate, Matt Rogan.
Matt Rogan:Good afternoon, good evening.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah. Looking forward to this. And we've got Antonio from Apex
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :Thank you.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:What's the day like for you? Before we start talking about all the big stuff that we're gonna talk about, give us what's the day job from your point of view. Give us a bit of biography so people know who, who you are.
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :Of course. Well. think, I'm a founder. I'm a, I'm a CEO, but also, let's say, uh, the day-to-day leader of, of the business here I wouldn't say there's a typical kind of day because we're at the beautiful time that we are with sports. a lot of curiosity, a lot of, appetite from investors, a lot of companies out there searching for, for capital so they can innovate and grow and, not just on the venture space, but also, teams, leagues, properties out there, which means I spend a lot of time on the plane. So there's kind of. The traveling side of, of my day to day, which is probably half of the year I'm traveling. And then there's the other sort of day to day, which is on, on, on the grounds, on, on the office just making sure that while we are raising capital and investing, we're also building the right operation to do things differently. I think the beauty about what we do and how we do is, is is that we, we were born out of sports. We were not kind of an investment company that decided to let's invest now also in sports. were born out of sports and we set up an investment business to deploy only in sports and to make sure that we are, driving the future of, of the sector and connecting the best investors with, with the best investment opportunities in sports for the, for the better of, of the fan of, of the athletes, of, of the stake, of any stakeholder, to be honest in sports. So, so I have my, my role as a CEO and I have my role as a, as a, as a ho hopefully as a visionary in, in the sector that needs to make sure to convince now other type of investors that have never invested in the sector to, to trust a big business opportunity here. So, so yeah, I would say, there's two, two hats to, to what I do.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:So explain then what is Apex and just again, on, in very simple terms, where does the, where is the money coming from? Where for the, for the fund, and where are you spending it? Just give us a bit of a oversight over that.
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :Yeah. So we are. A sports investor. We, our foundation before kind of, speaking to the investors that we do we deal with today, which are more and more the kind of investors that a lot of investment managers out there speak to, family offices, high net worth individuals, institutions, fund of funds, pension funds potentially as well. Our, I think what we did differently was our first investors were the athletes themselves. That was the, my initial vision and that was how I believed that we would build industry knowledge, how we would build brand equity for Apex as an investment firm. So people would really trust that. When we are saying that we are comfortable in taking sports business risk, we really are because we have the athletes. But when we say we have the athletes, we have capital, their. Involvement, their network, their industry insights. And I think that is, that is key and to our DNA and to our foundation. And, and the main, one of the main reasons why we really grew very quickly over the last few years but
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:So who, who are the athletes that we're talking about there? Just give us a, give us a sprinkling of the names so that,'cause it feels like that's a, that is a point of difference. When people talk about Apex, they quite often go very quickly to the athletes putting the money in on the, on the investment side. So let, just give us an idea of who the, who that is.
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :People always love to know the names. I mean, we are, we're very. Open about it, and so are are them. So happy to, to na. Name a few. Formula One drivers like Carlos Sz, land Norris football players like Rafael Veran and, and, and Marcelo the real Madrid legend. like Mark Cavendish and Demi ing one of the best female cyclists currently in the world. Surfers skaters model, gp, riders. You name it, it's, it's a, a really broad range of, of athletes more than, or almost 200 now from 17 different sports. I would say a bit more. European based in terms of where they're participating, because obviously that's where we are from and kind of where we saw a bit more the opportunity because there were that kind of athlete entrepreneur movement was already happening in the us but more and more global a lot of US based athletes kind of um, joining as well our athlete network investing in our fund or a fund that we are soon to, to launch, in our deals. And some exciting new names from the US will also be announced so we can really, truly make it best and, and, and, and the strongest global athlete network investing in sports in the world.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Okay, so again, you, you forgive me'cause and, and Matt always gives me a sort of side eye'cause I ask really stupid questions. I money is, is you know, just an, an issue for me in terms of just generally, but the understanding of finance. So this is, so just gimme a sense of so what role do these athletes play? Is that, I can see there is a marketing appeal to the famous athlete names. Just gimme a sense of what's the deal from their point of view. Are you giving them a, are they leveraging their fame? And that is an appeal to other investors to come on board because you've got famous people investing and that give, that's a sort of quick way of establishing, I dunno what it would be trust in the fund. That the fund is gonna happen and it's gonna, there's real money involved here.'cause there's a lot of, someone like me, I get loads of press releases from funds and people venture. Things popping up. Just gimme a sense of the role that the athletes play, why that is central, and why would they go with you?
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :Yeah. So in terms of their role, we can, we can kind of look at it in three ways. There's, that they're really deploying capital. It's on something that they understand them, that rational decision into, I'm investing with Apex in their fund or in their deal in a sector like sports gets them more comfortable in terms of. They, they know what risk they're kind of taking. They can, when we are showing them the thesis of a fund or what a company does in, if it's a particular company they're investing in, I think they can easily understand what that business does and have a view. And for them, like any investor that gives a sense of comfort and potentially be able to take more or less risk, something for sure that they, in other sectors it's harder for them to, to do. So that's kind of critical for, to get them motivated in, in saying
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :we, obviously whenever we, we deal with athletes, many times the advisor, whoever is close to them will get involved, but the decision ultimately is, is up to them and, and many times it's driven by them. So I think that's quite unique. And with that then you obviously get their involvement. So they help us a lot in diligence. So when we are looking at a lot of new businesses and new sports, know, nothing. Better than the athletes themselves to kind of on an industry perspective give you a lot of opinions around that sport, around the fans, around the sport, around the stakeholders. They are born in, born in a particular sport and spend their entire lives there from a young age into, mature athletes that they, most, most of them are. So, so that's, that industry validation is, is also key. And then there's a third pillar, which is obviously as well the commercial value, right? That, that is, that is the reality. know, if I'm investing into a, a, a social media business and Zuckerberg is, is an investor of mine, if I mention it, that will give credibility into the deal, right? Same thing if I'm investing into a sports business and a tier one athlete is also investing in that business, it makes much more sense than, than if were investing in, in, in, in a restaurant or in, in anything else. So. That Associa association of them as investors with, with capital into something that makes sense that they understand is also obviously critical into attracting then potential future revenues other investors and just awareness into, into the transaction, which is also
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:And I've got just one more before I hand it over to Matt. So just gimme a sense of just, I'm just getting the geography of the thing before we get into detail. So. If I am, MARCE or Orlando Norris, whoever I'm giving this, I'm giving some money. I dunno what the average sort of deployment would be by athlete. Is that a, what level of funding are we looking at here?
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :It's, there isn't an average one. It, it depends on, on the phase of the career. It depends on, obviously, what sport they're from.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Okay.
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :it's, it's hard to say, but it's definitely, enough capital for them. It's for us, it's critical that it's enough capital for them to get them.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Worried.
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :involved, worried, and, but in a good way,
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. To take it, it's not, yeah. Okay. So they, they, it's, it's significant enough for them to, to get their attention. They're, they're rich people. There's a, so your job then is to return. Better than alternative investments. Obviously index funds, they could put the money elsewhere so their knowledge and understanding of sport has pointed them towards you. You are a sort of vehicle that I understand it would, from their point of view. I, they're in sport as opposed to, Heinz beans or whatever the options are. Then you can then start to say, yes, how much role do they want and how much can you give them In that sense,
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :that also obviously depends on, on, on the athlete and the, and the phase of the career that they're,
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:yeah.
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :Right. You would. Assume that younger athletes that are at the peak of their career and fighting for, their one World championship, or that next contract that they might, obviously, in terms of time, that would be less than, than pot potentially know, Iran or a Marcel or, or someone that is on the later stage of their career where they're really thinking post-care and how actually something like this can play a fundamental role there. But the involvement is always there. I mean, they're always a call away. If we are looking at something on the eSports side, young, I will call our, all our athletes and I'll get their view on, on, on, on where, where it's at, on that particular business or, or on more of a macro perspective on the sector. They'll always pick up the, the phone and, and give their opinion. But obviously if they've got more time, if they can travel with us somewhere, then they will do so. And then if obviously they're in the peak of the career, they're probably not. So there is always involvement. That is key. It's not an obligation, obviously, at the end of the day. They're LPs, we're gp, they invest, they trust, but obviously there's an element of why they're investing, why we, we, we prefer them, and why they, they invest with us. Beyond that typical kind of wealth management decisions that they make,'cause those are distant to them, that's done by, on really kind of a an asset preservation standpoint. With us, it's, it's kind of, we're taking a little bit more risk, but also in a sector that we understand better, so we can also learn, so we can become entrepreneurs. So, so we can, we can feel more than just a, a check or, or, or a face on a PR stand because that's normally what ends up happening with them. And, and with, with us. They are much more than that and that's what they appreciate.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Okay. Matt.
Matt Rogan:Very good. I mean, we talked Antonio in an earlier, podcast and this other People's Money series about the changing role of athlete agents in terms of going from the, maybe negotiating a transfer once every years just to keep the money rolling in into more of a holistic support for athletes. do you find that most of the agents you're dealing with sort of almost a proxy, financial advisors as well now, do you find them sort of taking a, a bigger roll on in terms of helping them manage, I think you used the wealth management phrase in terms of managing low risk stuff, high risk stuff, and a whole portfolio. or do you find yourself talking to somebody completely different on that conversation? I.
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :sure they, you see a big step up in terms of their involvement. Particularly again, the, the younger kind of set of. Agencies and agents more. 360, maybe 30 years ago. Their role, as you said, was negotiate that next contract and make it the best possible.
Matt Rogan:Yeah.
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :Maybe 15 years ago it became to that, it was let's also find brands that wanna do a commercial deal. And now there's kind of that third pillar of investments, projects future because, a lot of these a athletes are, are brands and that brand needs to stay relevant also post career. So how, how to do that. And I think agents are need to adapt to that. They are not financial advisors, so,
Matt Rogan:No.
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :say they are they are kind of involved in, in, in that management structuring of, of their portfolios. But they are. in saying, no, we think this is, this would be good for you. We think this in getting involved with, with Apex knowing you is something that you will like and, and, let's obviously then bring in our, financial advisor to understand today how much
Matt Rogan:Mm-hmm.
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :With Apex. But so that kind of economic decision is then done with, with, with their wealth manager or financial advisor. But they do play a role in, in, in, in designing that apex. Is, is something that is, is important for, for, for the athlete then they should, they should do again if, if it's within the athlete's kind of DNA, right? Some athletes really don't have an entrepreneurial DNA, they don't care for them, is about squeezing the lemon as much as they can during their career. And then we see, and some are already really thinking post-care, some. Realize that there's actually 24 hours in a day and you can do a lot of other things. And they look at the US and they look at a lot of the great examples of US athletes that have investments and gotten involved and ask questions and are not afraid or kind of stepping outside their comfort zone to do it while they're still peaking. Some athletes are realizing that and agents that see that in their clients will obviously push for that. And hopefully more and more of these agents starts to see that the APEX is, is a, is a great partner for them. And we have amazing relationships with, with a lot of the big agency groups out there. Not just individual ones, but also
Matt Rogan:Mm-hmm.
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :the CAAs. We the was sermons. We have great relationships with them. We bring them deals, they bring us potential clients. They bring us ideas, they bring us industry validation. In many cases they actually have their own pools of capital, which they can also invest with us. And it just kind of. Brings the ecosystem tight, and I think that makes kind of our investment proposition as a whole stronger.
Matt Rogan:It's interesting, isn't it? I mean, we, one of the things we also talked about on that last podcast was increasing private e private equity investment in the agents themselves. So you sort of got private equity owned sports agents being brought deals by private equity, sort of, and that whole ecosystem sort of beginning to, to work in a, one would argue a slightly more mature way. Do you do you notice any preference amongst it? So I'm assuming the. are a relatively small percentage still of most of the checks you write. And you might have family funds, as you say, or other institution investors putting money in as well. and so if you are, if you are looking at an investment, say of a, one of your larger ones into a rights holder, for example, is there an ideal percentage from athletes, percentage of sort of equity from yourselves, percentage of of debt, for example, that you might look to put into a deal? Or do you dial up and dial down the various bits of investment you're putting into something depending what you think it really needs?
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :I mean, that's a great question. For sure we started deals and even our first commit commitments into the first fund that we launched. It was a hundred percent athlete capital because that's
Matt Rogan:Okay.
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :we
Matt Rogan:Yeah.
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :validate it, we wanted to, that was for us, the strongest industry validation that we would get.
Matt Rogan:Yeah.
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :So for the first two years we spoke to no other investor other than athletes. We knew that, we would be on the smaller check sizes but we, we hoped that we would all, we would be on the larger size in terms of value creation into the companies that we were investing in today. That has changed today. Obviously they athletes probably represent maybe 5% of the a we
Matt Rogan:Yeah. Okay.
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :and that would probably keep, keep decreasing. They still represent an important percentage of the number of investors that we have,
Matt Rogan:Mm-hmm.
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :would also keep decreasing. But they are, will always be critical to our DNAs. So I wouldn't say there isn't, I wouldn't say there is kind of an ideal threshold. I mean, for us it's always important that whatever they're investing with us is meaningful for them. So obviously that's, it is a real investment. then at the end of the day, we're scaling, the, you see a bunch, a lot of institutional capital flowing into sports. The Apollos, the CVCs, the Aries, the, TPGs, you name it. So, they, they start to invest on smaller things, and we need to make sure that we, we can do larger check size so we can keep competing and, keep delivering the, what we can and what we, we are best at doing in sports. And, and for that we need, we need other types of investors. But we, we hope to never lose. And we, we that athlete, DNA, so for us it's about making sure that in every deal that we have, we have athletes. So we're now launching a new fund where, you know, athletes who will represent definitely a very small part of. We will always give priority to athletes if they really wanna invest. So we, we are much more flexible in, in minimum investment amounts for, for a particular share class we might create for them. As long as obviously we feel that they will keep adding value, they'll keep getting involved, they'll keep providing everything that they, have always provided to us.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:So in terms of the, see recently September, you and I'm just gonna read it from your press release Apex, the sport focused investment firm backed by a hundred plus world class athletes today announced the final close of its Elite Performance Fund led by a cornerstone commitment from Red Bull Ventures. That's BULL, not BALL. So Red Bull Ventures, the recently launched investment arm of one of sport's most iconic brands, et cetera, et cetera. So just give us a bit of context on this. What's happening there? Why have Red Bull coming? Gimme a sense of who, what it is and then what you want it to be.
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :Yeah. So as we all know, red Bull is probably one of the strongest brands in
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :in the world. They've, sports has been their biggest platform, right? They've indirectly been investing in sports for many years through obviously marketing budgets, but also in a lot of team ownership. We see what they've done with Formula One. We've seen what they've done in, in football, what they've done with other, kind
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:And rugby have recently just bought Newcastle, haven't they?
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :A lot of, these adrenaline and, and freestyle sports. So, so they've owned and operated a lot of sports assets, but what they've never done is actually invested in, in early stage venture. So sports technology, sports innovation. They've obviously. Indirectly been in around it because they've always been in the forefront of that. But really investing into startups, investing into sports tech is something completely new. So they set up this Red Bull Ventures which is a 200 million pool of capital from their own kind of balance sheet to invest in just that. So then obviously one, they see it as a, as a very interesting area of for returns for them. But second, they see that, the more involved they are with a lot of these technologies, the more they can guarantee that they can integrate a lot of these young businesses and ventures into their ecosystem. But as any smart kind of corporate venture should do the, if they're getting into something new, even though sports is not new, the venture space is, they should do it with people that, initially should do it with people that have been doing it. And this is what our Elite Performance Fund has been doing for the last three years. And, and Apex has, has a business for the last five years we've been investing in sports venture in, in sports technology, in emerging leagues like TGL, like baller. And that's exactly what, what rebel want to see. And but their first decision was to invest in the right partners, the right funds so they can. Obviously get access to that deal flow, learn with us, and then obviously bring all that synergies that an apex and a Red Bull can have. So that's the purpose of that. We, for us, it's, it's incredible a partner like Red Bull, it, it, when we thought about going beyond athletes and obviously into the corporate institutions of this world, we thought of a lot. But Red Bull was always kind of that I, one of the ideal,
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :partners, we, we could, we could imagine and, and getting them still in this, our first fund is, is obviously a, a great validation of, of what we are doing, but also of the industry as a
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:it is sort of interesting because it's almost there. There's a line here I think between sponsorship and investment, and obviously there's a question because in the past I imagine, they're writing massive sponsorship checks and a lot of the tech is being developed on their dime, but they're just. The, the bank, they're just giving the money in return for marketing assets and whatever. Now this is not a new thing for them. Obviously, they've got into team ownership for, for a long time, but it feels like that's a shift from just pa just writing the checks to actually having returns or the chance of returns built in. Is this, is that part of, I'm trying to get in the heads of, of Red Bulls strategies?
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :For sure, but I, but this is not new for
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:No.
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :know, they, they have been investing in IP for, for longer than, than many brands that we see now, C-L-V-M-H now
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :putting a lot of money in, in sports, one of the biggest kind of sponsorship deals with Formula One. They didn't get any kind of equity involvement there, but they, they got involved with Red Bull and in Paris fc. So you see a lot of brands thinking, why are we just gonna put in, exactly a, a check when we can actually a bit of equity and, and then obviously if this grows, we, we also benefit on, on, on the equity appreciation side of things. I think Red Bull was a pioneer in doing that, with, with
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :Formula One, with, with ownership there, with, with a lot of the things that they've been doing in football. So think now it's just a third layer, which is going into the venture and and technology side of things, which is where, the other companies are, are not there yet because they're now for the first time considering the team ownership or the, equity at team and IP level, and league levels started to happen. But, but Red will have, have always been, been doing that. And I think it's exactly that. Why just put in, why not? Get some equity and take ownership since we are gonna be so critical,
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :driving revenues.'cause at the end of the day, a lot of sports businesses, sports properties out there they get really, really strong media value and they can monetize on media rights. They're doing it on sponsorships, they're doing it in commercial value. you know what you first said, the relationship between sponsorship and investment has always been hand in hand from the beginning of, sports.
Matt Rogan:If you look at, flip it the other way, from an athlete perspective, red Bulls always seem to me One of the coolest brands for an athlete to have a sponsor. Whenever I'm in an airport lounge, I pick up that Red Bull magazine that's just got advertorial about all the, the athletes that they partner with. British Surfer I think is on the cover of the last one from September. And so if you are a surfer with a limited career lifespan, say, and you can either pick up an amount of money a month for Red Bull for three years that you're at the top of your game, you can help them co-invest in a product. If they might have a longer life period and actually extend your working relationship with someone like that where you're both invested in the same thing, albeit to different levels of financial exposure. It's quite interesting'cause it sort of deepens the relationship with the athlete and the brand potentially as well. So, I dunno how many of your a hundred athletes are already partners of Red Bull, but I'm sure you've got a few people queuing up to sort of put themselves in front of the Red Bull organization as well.
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :Yeah, 100%. And, and I, I think there, there are two, right? They were the first movers in, in creating their Red Bull academies in
Matt Rogan:Mm-hmm.
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :The, in, in betting, in in athlete ip, in giving them support. I mean, at the end of the day, the, the media and powerhouse that Red Bull have, have been able to build, Kind of outweighs whatever you might believe and think about the Red Bull product today even. Right. We're in a, in, in a stage where, the, the level of around how we see what is healthy and what is not healthy is, is, is stronger than ever.
Matt Rogan:Yeah.
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :So the Red Bull kind of original might not be considered as, as healthy as maybe it, it once was, or, or as, as actually sports like as it once was. But when you think of Red Bull, you think of healthy, you think of sports, you think of, risk taking. You, you, you think of lifestyle, you think of everything that's, the, where the world is going today. So, and that is driven through media house that they've been able to build by betting on the right IP from, the beginning. And that's athletes, but that's sports properties as well.
Matt Rogan:I'm guessing you probably have that also that tedious process that every business, including my own back in the day had to go through though, where you sort of have to start erecting Chinese walls and structure things.'cause Bull would love all the technology that Aston Martin you've got a piece of as well. Right. So Aston and Martin, you have to have a relationship you manage over there and then the Red Bull relationship somewhere else in the Ventures fund, or is that, am I over egging that complexity?
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :I, I think you're, you're, you mean with Alpine? We're
Matt Rogan:Yeah. Yeah, sorry. Alpine. Yeah.
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :let's say that right now. Red Bull is not very concerned with, with without Alpine is, is doing on the performance side of things. No, but that's definitely something we, we obviously need to manage, and,
Matt Rogan:Yeah.
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :but that's, that's why we invest from different kind of buckets. We, we are an investment business that has different strategies, different, different focuses and obviously every time we're looking into a deal, we look, we, we need to understand kind of the legal framework and what, what conflicts of interest might arise. But of the day, one thing is having Red Bull Ventures as an LP in our venture fund, which invests in supports technology. Another thing is our investment into lp, which comes from a different bucket, which is our growth and private equity vehicle.
Matt Rogan:And I'm guessing some of, most of the private equity work, if I'm right, I'm thinking that you're probably taking minority positions as distinct from the, the sort of venture fund that's majority, and that needs different things from your team as well.
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :Yes correct. In the, to now most our kind of growth private equity have been on minority stakes. That is kind of slowly shifting, know, due to the fact that we have more and more capital in the management and obviously more kind of institutional capital, which is pressuring for us to kind of grow in, in terms of ownership stakes. We are not in the hunt, let's say, through that fund in, in, into kind of for buyouts. So we're not looking
Matt Rogan:Mm-hmm.
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :do acquisitions, but we are definitely now doing more strategic minorities, which is 20 to 40% equity stakes. Where we are, we get governance, get a lot of control over the business and the commercial side of things, but we are happy to kind of let. team or or league be, be run on a sports side by, by the sports people that have been doing it. that is kind of what we are targeting today. But it is true that, of these investments, including Alpine, were definitely on the minority side.
Matt Rogan:Yeah.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Can I ask you about TGL? I'm really I'm interested in it because we did a thing at the Open Championship this week, this year at Portas Rush, and we were talking about the sort of audience and market fit of golf essentially. And you can imagine that at the Open, it's a, golf, with the Big G, it's a, you know, the traditional, top, top of the market, et cetera. Great event. The market fit to the audience works, obviously on a, when you drop below the, the majors and the Rider cup, we just had, golf looks very different in terms of the fit between the audience, particularly its audiences. It's changing. So we're in this live golf moment and TGL appeared, you know, was a response to that. And Tomorrow Sports is the, is the umbrella organization. When I listened to now, who was it? George Pine of Brewing Sports Investment, I was quite taken by how high betting was in his assessment of TGL. It was quite interesting how he saw. Being central to the, to the business model, which sort of took me by surprise. Can you just talk to me about TGL, the ambition of it and the revenue where you see the money coming from TGL or for t.
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :Yeah, so first thing I wanna say there is, even though it might appear, so TGL. Was not a response from PGA in regards to Liv Golf. When we were pitched, when, when we first heard them Nino, and this was a couple months, or even a year after the, the initial conversation, I'm sure between Tiger and Rory and the founding team of, of tomorrow wasn't even out there. So even though it did seem like PGA's response, it really wasn't the foundation and the reason why TGL came about was to bring media value and new audiences to golf. So they, it is, everyone is realizing that golf is a huge global sport growing levels of ma mass participation from. New, new audiences really post COVID, right? People love to go out there. You see younger people, you see more and more women playing the game. But the reality is that it is a very, very tough, or it was at least a very, very tough product or sport to watch on tv. You need to really love it. And even the people that really love to play it that hard time to watch maybe beyond Ride Cup and a few others. So what, what, what the, the reasons behind it is let's find a whole disruptive new way to really engage with golf as a media product, as a TV product. Let's make it really Gen Z focused, let's make it dynamic. Let's, let's, let's gamify it. Potentially the, the betting angle as well, where obviously there's a lot of things that happen, a lot of different parameters around an entire game of golf that, can actually make it quite appealing as a betting product as well. But more importantly, let's bring me a value to golf. So, so today what, the big ambitions and, and realities behind TGL are, are, are, are media. They, they have done a very interesting they were, announced TGL with a primetime with ESPN, which is, know, which is quite unique for a disruptive new sport because it, it is, but it is in golf, right? Even though it is true that you have Tiger and Rory and a lot of these huge, stars playing it from the beginning, which I'm sure helps, but the reality is that it is a new concept. A, a lot of sponsorship revenues as well. It's, it's a, it's a much more compelling way for potentially for, brands to, come in as sponsors and bring their clients and bring in hospitality because, on a, in a golf day, it's, it's a huge, there's 18 holes. It could be wind, it could rain, it could be too hot. So, and there you can really, make it much more entertaining, much and much more obvious and, and guaranteed for, for a lot of these sponsors to bring in their clients and, and to, to, to show a, another level of hospitality to the game of golf. So, so in many ways, the revenue streams are actually quite traditional compared to, other big sports out there, with, with media, tv, and, and in a certain way as well, ticket selling, obviously the arenas is limited, so it's very kind of hospitality and, and, and premium level focused. But there is a, of obviously ticketing and, and, and hospitality. There. and then obviously it is possible and that they have been quite good in, in bringing in, a gamified approach to it, which you can bring in, in betting and a lot of kind of less obvious revenue streams that, uh, that were never associated to the game of golf. And I would, would TGL you can.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:But just on the runway then of, of getting a return from something, an investment like that, I can see, I can see franchise money coming in. I can, you know, there's lots of rich people investing in the teams and whatever, but I, and I get it. There's a, a question of how that car correlates with your fund. So if you are looking at a three year fund, how does the sort of outlook of a investment like TGL. Calibrate with that. Do you need it to make money quickly for your fund to generate a return to keep your shit your investors happy?
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :Yeah, so actually our fund is a 10 year fund, which is it's first of all very typical to, to, let's call a venture, early stage investing. I think sports even kind of mature private equity strategies into sports should have. We should be close to the 10 years because you need time, you shouldn't have pressure to exit or that,'cause even those exit dynamics around a new sector in terms of investment and in terms of institutional capital, will take time to build its own exit dynamics. There's a lot of different ways why, where there will come, but it isn't guaranteed and nothing worse than having that pressure and cap capping your, your upside. So we have a 10 year fund. So, so with that, obviously something like DGL just makes a lot of sense. We came in the foundation, we've, we've obviously we've seen all the growth through the franchise sales, through the great mediaite deals, through the great sponsors they've brought in, through the success of season one and now preparing for season two, the se, the, the sell of now the seventh franchise at almost, twice what the first initial six franchises went for. And, and the business is actually quite opera operationally, cashflow positive, obviously we. The business keeps investing in technology and making sure that it's, it's really at the level that everyone wants and in the TV product. But that's a kind of a, a, a business decision. But at the end of the day, it's, it's, it's quite, you would be surprised, positive, in terms of what the business already from day one is generating. But at the end of the day, there's also a big kind of asset appreciation that we're all playing here with, bringing the right partners at the franchise level for every team as the right broadcasters and as the right sponsors.
Matt Rogan:the way golf's playing out where, there seems a, a generation of golfers who rather than. Simply sort of maximize their tournament exposure. Whether that's on live or PGA tour or whatever, to maximize the amount of revenue they're bringing in. Very traditional. So looking outside that and saying, how can we bring entrepreneurial, protect ourselves from the longer term, and so on. And then you contrast that with where tennis is right now, you have a large number of the top players frustrated with their relatively minimal proceeds from grand slam tours. And that I guess, can go one or two ways. Either there's a different kind of relationship negotiated between the players and the traditional entities, or they say, okay, we're gonna do something else. Even if it compliments the rest of the calendar. I'm Carlos Araz, I'm gonna create my own exhibition series to maximize my income outside of the traditional tennis infrastructure. how do you imagine, I, I guess the, sort of those sports that individual sports that aren't necessarily team sports will play out, do you think? The individual characters will start to drive completely different economic models for the, the golfs and the tennis and the econ and the athletics and so, or, or where the athletes, bring parties like yourselves in and just go it alone. Or do you think there will be a happy compromise where, know, maybe the grand slams or or and so on do actually find a way to absorb some of these new ventures and, and crack on in just a brave new world?
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :Yeah, I think that tennis is a good example comparing to maybe where golf was,
Matt Rogan:Yeah.
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :five years ago for sure. I think it's, I think for sports like tennis, like golf, which are already very, very global with a lot of history, culture, and heritage, i, I, I want to believe that the right, that what will happen is there will be potentially fears of disruption and, but that the, the same way that PGA in many ways. Listened to the golfers and, and, and, and endorsed and supported TGL and then obviously
Matt Rogan:Mm-hmm.
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :a reaction then to live, change a little bit on how, how players are, are, are treated and maybe tennis could do the same. I think tennis has a also a very kind of, it's in a phase where it's a bit political and it's a bit complicated, but you do see more and more players of getting together and speaking and, and, and wanting kind of, understanding how strong their names are and wanting something different. So I do think that. A TP will have to react to that. I, I don't see a new kind of like a live golf going, within tennis and, and, and, and forgetting what, what, what is a TP and, and players getting together and starting something. I do think, obviously that, a TP and needs to change, in certain ways to, to adapt to, to how the younger generations want to consume tennis, want, how the younger players want to adapt to it. Young players are more and more stars. They're more and more brands, as we talked to, talked about in the initial of the start of this, this conversation. So, so they have that power to, to kind of change things. So, so I think that I see that going more that way than, than kind of creating a new concept around tennis. Well, on its own.
Matt Rogan:I guess Kingsley can live with the Premier League, right? Baller League can live in football ecosystem. TGL can live in a golfer gig system. Fairly straightforwardly that regard.
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :but those are kind of complimentary.
Matt Rogan:Yeah,
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :but football was, was working well, right? I mean, things are not perfect, but football was, football wasn't where tennis is today.
Matt Rogan:For
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:It is quite hard, isn't it? The disruption story in sport. It's quite interesting when you look at the strength of the incumbent, the rights holders and the moat that they have and how underrated quite often that is. It's quite, the disruption story is quite in exciting. But you, like live golf is, is I think, a really interesting case study for the sports business because of how difficult, how much money it has to, you know, almost un unfathomable amounts of money that they've spent and still go on spending. And we know, obviously we know all the arguments about, it's not just about a return, it's about Saudi statecraft, all of those things. But actually when you look at it. It's even a, and I would, I can say this, you can't, but a, a sort of the accusation towards the PGA tour was of complacency, you know, and that's, that's always the ac the accusation of the incumbent rights holder. And you see that all over and rugby and cricket and all, you know, every sport there is a dissatisfaction, but then it's really hard to topple them because they've just got history and various things that fans actually want. And it's, it's, it's as, as you say, you made a really, really good point there about complementary disruption almost, I dunno if that's the right phrase versus absolute head on. And one argument is that actually live golf and various iterations in different sports are essentially if, if you are the rights holder, that's the sort of external research and development that's going on. You can go and test the market for new products and if it works, okay. Will do it.
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :Yeah, and, and it's, it's what you're saying in. PGA were too comfortable. Right. Why did, even if they got certain signs that things needed to change, at the end of the day, they didn't to because they, yeah. If you don't like it, yeah. Don't play for it. Don't play. And so they just have too much power. And like any, anything in the world, too much power can always be, be dangerous and people get complacent. And then, businesses and industries and, and sports properties in this case don't, don't adapt to, to what the new fan wants, what the players want, because they don't need to. That's why I think whatever your view is on Lgo, they are the, the, the start and the creation of live golf will, at the end of the day, ultimately benefit the game of golf. Is that, that, put pressure into the PGA adapting? Is it that, at the end of the day, certain ideas around live golf are actually much more entertainment focused. That it's what will actually attract. Different audiences into, into a sport. At the end
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah,
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :These businesses have to be sustainable,
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:see. I, it's fascinating that,'cause I think there's, I I can absolutely, there's part of me that wants to agree with you about that. The other bit is that I wonder when you step back and, and you put yourselves in the, in the, through the eyes of sponsors, the, the banks, the sponsors and the media companies, quite often, when you're a a golf tournament, people are just talking about Liv and this, this frustration with it is just stuck and the market is stuck. And after a while we've got other stuff to do. And if they don't sort it out, it's like boxing, over a period of time, you just sort of, okay, well I used to know who the heavyweight champion was. Now I don't, and I don't care anymore. And that's sort of the danger is that you get this staris, the market is just not going anywhere because both sides are fighting against, amongst themselves, and the fans turn around and say, you know, I'll, I'll go and watch something else. I can't. I just, so when I, when you sort it out, I might, I may or may not come back. That's, that's the sort of the big problem I think.
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :Oh yeah. Nothing worse than not knowing what to watch and, and, and how to watch something. Right. But on the other, but on the other side, I think golf is just also too big. It's not that there's an alternative to, to golf, right? I think people will, maybe for a couple of years they might lose interest, but then if eventually things are figured out and a new star comes around, I mean, then people will follow. I mean, what a sport needs, and particularly for value, for, for real TV audiences, you need stardom, and speaking close
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :to us. If you look at Formula One, that's what Liberty we're able to do through. drive to survive through a lot of the, the decisions that they made was they made the 20 drivers on that grid. Global superstars. The moment that that happened, then eyeballs went through the roof when eyeballs to go through the roof. And it's not just in terms of, tv, no live audiences, but also, social media engagement and, and younger demographics unlocked, women unlocked into a sport that never happened. The moment that is done, brands can justify the crazy sponsorship dollars that started to flow. Media rights deal particularly, for example in the US went from pretty much zero to to record deals. And then, know, then, then the rest, the rest is history. And everyone knows, the 20 drivers in the grid and they're now, also. Doing their own deals that, maybe some of them years ago, nobody knew who the, the guy that was fourth or 15th grid and now everyone follows the guy who was lost because he's so, at the end of the day, if, if sports have that, they will always survive turbulence. So I think obviously one of the reasons why tennis is also shaking things around, even though obviously there's, is because now you have a new fight between Raz and Sinner and that is DR driving audiences. And that's obviously what gives comfort to potentially investors and a lot of, and, and accelerates what the a TP needs to kind of do and, and change to then monetize these arguments. So I think at the end of the day, golf will survive the risk is if they lose stars, right? And if there's no golfer, that is a global start and obviously that that can be a driver and maybe that will be a result of this. PGA lead fight. But at the end of the day, I think they'll, they'll, they'll figure it out. And, and, and in the game of golf, broadly speaking, will actually benefit from, what Liv tried to do. And then maybe we'll succeed, but obviously in a different way than what they initially envisioned for.
Matt Rogan:one final thing maybe to, to throw in was really pleased when you, you talked about your investors getting involved, that you have some female investors female world champ cyclists, for example. And one of the problems we find, frankly, even this podcast is the looks and investment in sport is finding a representative, group of people from the industry prepared to talk about where the sport is going. That isn't it entirely male, right? So if you, if you take the hypothesis that. The athlete audience is better paid. The male athlete audience is better paid than the female athlete audience at the moment. How do you create conditions in Apex that female athletes, even if their paychecks aren't as big, can invest and can provide meaningful value? Because if I look at the 10 most impressive business people I've had the, the luxury of working with in the 35 years of my career, the reality is, six have been athletes and three of those have been female. So how do you capture the female view and the female market in Northern Investment you're doing?
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :Yeah, I think we're, we're living already in, in a phase where, you know, where the perception around women's sports has, has changed. I think and the first, the first stakeholders to realize that are the brands themselves. Women just as a. cons consume clearly different than, than men, women athletes, maybe because they are consumers, maybe because they need to, because on the salaries they're, they're obviously at different levels. They are much more proactive dealing with brands and in their brand deals and, and, and, and engaging and bring, and, and working for them in, in that way.
Matt Rogan:Do you find that too in the way they engage with you?
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :100%. 100%. I
Matt Rogan:Okay.
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :we're, we're different, right? Men are, are, are, are more binary. We're
Matt Rogan:Yeah.
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :Women in general, they, they, they prepare more. They, they're more structured. They, they're more risk averse. But when they actually decide something, they'd like to think about things. I mean, I'm obviously generalizing, but, but, but there is that element of difference between men and women I think in the investment side we clearly see that in a lot of the good things. And I think brands see that. And I think the fact that brands see that and that actually 50%. Behind Nike are, are, are women that actually just, that's why you already see a lot of the sponsorships and, and commercial deals that women and know female athletes are doing are actually getting closer and closer to men. So, and, and, and, and, and that's why, and I think through, through that growth in the sponsorship deals that they're doing, obviously they have a bit more capital than they, that's how they potentially can invest with us on, on the salaries. I mean, obviously the sports is not there yet. And, and I don't think it's a question of of fairness, it's a question of, of also just, business. At the end of the day look at we, we looked at a lot of women's leagues and there's definitely a growth of eyeballs, but the moment you put a paywall, it can just kill it. Football, as we know, it took a hundred years get where it is. You cannot expect and you shouldn't pressure women's game to, in 10 years. Build that and'cause then there's also kind of an exponential feeling to it. So it's normal. And, and since media rights are one of the biggest revenue streams in football, it is only normal that, on the women's side it's very small, so it's hard to justify the salaries that were, it's growing and, I,
Matt Rogan:Yeah.
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :but I think then on the, but when you look at the sponsorship, that side, that's a different thing because 50% of the consumers of these brands, if not more, are women themselves. So I don't think that, I think now it's it's slowly starting to balance and obviously that's why we're seeing the growth that we're seeing on the athlete and on the sports side, we, we really invest in it. We're very bullish. And definitely working with, with female athletes as investors is, is a great experience. And and we, we really, really pushed for it. And we're very happy to count with some very strong female athletes
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:And And how many of your investments are female focused properties?
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :So right now purely female. There is there is no, there is no investment done yet. I mean, we're invested in Venetia football Club. There is a female team, so I wouldn't say also purely male. There's, TGL maybe, but, we are really focus focusing on a particular transaction just in women's sports that we've been working for over a year, which hopefully we can, we can announce
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Okay. Just on that, women's sport question is interesting so something like Mercury, we had Vic on who's the principal, mercury,
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :Mm-hmm.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:I'm trying to sort of work out what the thesis is. I understand it. They wanna buy women's football clubs or the women's teams of existing clubs. Do you see that? Are they too early or are they wrong in that assessment?
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :I wouldn't say they're too early. I mean, they're very early, which obviously you need to be careful.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:I.
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :and obviously, and in many cases sometimes, an element of when you're the first movers, you're doing the first mistakes and you don't survive. I think they have that risk, don't think if they make the right choices, I don't think, I think they could, could be early enough, but also at the right time. Their, their model is, is exactly that in, the first or no European based kind of network of, of, women's football clubs that they can obviously then, build its own ip, but as, as a whole also Mercury 13 its own IP and you all the synergies across the platform, which I think makes a lot of sense because a lot of these, these teams are so small that on its own as an investment just very tough to justify. But at the same time, it's, it's, it's a strong, it's a very big challenge to, to, to run, 6, 7, 8 of these teams that are, are, are just starting effectively. It's not that you need to restructure and join the marketing department of this one without, some don't even have an understanding of, of, of basics around, how to run a club, how to, manage the transfers, the players, the infrastructure, and then eventually, some, their first use of funds actually needs to be a stadium. So it's, it's like investing in, in, in 10 startups in the world is really a venture approach. Maybe two or three. Will result. But that's fine. When you explain that you're a venture fund and you tell your LPs that, know, two will work, eight will fail, but as a whole we will win. In this case, mercury 13 is tough to say that because, they don't, they cannot say that eight of the clubs will will go bankrupt, right? So, there's a level of risk and a huge executional pressure that they have. But on the other hand, if you do things well as they have been, they, there's a huge opportunity to, to be the first mover at the right time around the women's game.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Okay, listen, we've really enjoyed that conversation. And
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :Thank you.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Matt, this is sort of joins in quite a lot of what we've talked about over the, so the course of the series, isn't it? There was, there is quite a lot there. And I like this idea that we keep bumping back into, which is about the money flowing to the athlete and then what is, what happens then and, and what's the sort of liquidity in the market that's creating liquidity in other investment markets. Which again, this is all part of that bigger story and it's a similar conversation. You mentioned the agents being, one of the things that PE is buying up, but this is a, a sort of feels like an offshoot or a, a different part of the equation.
Matt Rogan:I agree. I think we're in sport. We're slowly starting to understand the skill sets and support needed for investments of different types of different sizes at different times, it's just fantastic to hear enlightenment on the role that athletes can play in that they can extremely focus, can handle pressure. Remember Gareth, who was an elite 800 meter runner. I set two circles with David. Pitch, used to come in smiling and say it's race day. have so much to bring to bear and it's, it's nice to see us being a bit more enlightened about the role that they can play beyond just signing a check.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Okay. Right. Fantastic. Antonio, thank you so much for your time. Really enjoyed that and good luck with all the the ventures to come. Keep in touch.
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :Thank you
Matt Rogan:of luck.
Antonio Cacorino, Apex :and love the the opportunity to speak.