SeventySix Capital Sports Advisory featured by Sports Business Journal
Finance: Investment firms launch growth advisories to deepen client network
Earlier this month, SeventySix Capital managing partner Wayne Kimmel was in Pittsburgh to catch a ballgame alongside Pirates owner Bob Nutting and team president Travis Williams. Nutting is an investor in SeventySix’s most recent fund and has, through his TNC Ventures, invested alongside the Philadelphia-based VC firm in swing-tracking startup Diamond Kinetics. Yet as the group watched the Bucs take on the Atlanta Braves, the conversation quickly turned not to matters of investment, but rather to how SeventySix might be able to consult with the Pittsburgh Knights esports organization co-owned by Nutting.
Those sorts of conversations have become increasingly commonplace for Kimmel since 2020, when SeventySix brought on Pitch 15 Sports Group co-founders Dan Bravato and Chris Yortsos to launch an advisory arm alongside its venture investing practice.
“We just get so, so many inbound opportunities, and if they didn’t fit into the venture bucket where we’re investing today, it was like let’s help out a friend or in some cases make a friend by making a connection,” said Kimmel of the inspiration for establishing an in-house solution. “It’s so exciting to just have really smart, experienced sports professionals on the overall team so that we can help more people.”
Bravato, who previously worked at Van Wagner, NASCAR, Fathead and City Football Group, now serves as SeventySix Sports Advisory’s president. He said the advisory practice has over 50 clients, including the Edmonton Oilers, eMLS and Playfly Sports, and that there have been tremendous benefits from having access to the investment firm’s network as well as its clout, which can be a key differentiator in pitch meetings.
While sports advisory is a crowded space, the nascent model of bolting such a practice onto an investment firm provides synergies for both sides of the relationship. For one, investment firms are able to monetize relationships with companies that might not be an exact fit for their portfolios.
“One of the areas where we’ve seen a ton of growth generally in the sports industry is in nascent league creation,” said Bravato. “Those are great examples where people are coming and saying, ‘We need $50 million to launch this league’ or ‘We need $20 million to launch this league,’ which really isn’t our sweet spot as a pre-seed and seed investor. So as a byproduct of that, those are introductions that are coming [the advisory’s] way.” The firm’s advisory practice has worked with the Professional Darts Corporation, Lights Out Xtreme Fighting and the World Jai-Alai League.
And in terms of general business operations, the consultancies are low-risk, cash-flowing verticals that provide a complementary balance to the capital-intensive private equity side that’s in the business of tying up cash for years at a time.
Long-term, Kimmel anticipates that the advisory work of today will also help pave the road to a far more robust investment firm of the future. “What it allows us to do is really build out the overall expertise of SeventySix Capital so that, someday in the future, we are making larger investments, we are investing in teams, we are investing in leagues, we are investing in later-stage companies,” Kimmel said. “And that’s really enabling us to do more than just network. Now we’re actually working together as business partners, and the opportunities are coming in hot and heavy.”
Chris Smith writes a monthly column on finance news and trends. He can be reached at crsmith@sportsbusinessjournal.com.