JPMorgan Chase has created a “sports investment banking coverage group” aiming to offer advisory and financing solutions for potential investors in athletic franchises, Reuters reported Tuesday, citing an internal memo.
“Sports has become an increasingly large asset class, attracting more and more institutional investors," Fred Turpin, global head of media and communications investment banking, said in the memo, according to the wire service.
Eric Menell and Gian Piero Sammartano will co-lead the sports investment banking team and report to Turpin, according to the memo. Sammartano will also still report to Burkhard Koep, the head of telecoms and media for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Reuters reported.
The founding of the new banking team undoubtedly reinforces JPMorgan’s priority in facilitating sports investment — a prospect that has earned the bank its share of jabs over the years.
JPMorgan positioned itself as the financial backer of a proposed breakaway soccer league in 2021. The bank agreed to underwrite up to $4.8 billion in the creation of the European Super League. But the proposed league collapsed just days after the arrangement was announced, when six English Premier League teams pulled out, followed by two Italian teams and another from Spain.
The fallout even resulted in the resignation of Manchester United’s then-executive vice chair, Ed Woodward, a former JPMorgan executive, The Manchester Evening News reported.
The soccer venture was perhaps an avenue for JPMorgan to build name recognition in the U.K. as it strove to launch a digital bank in the country.
In an opinion piece, Nils Pratley, finance editor for The Guardian, wrote it was a “good thing” JPMorgan had not yet launched what would become Chase, adding “calls for a boycott would probably be heard already on account of the Wall Street bank’s role as financier, and thus enabler, of the deeply unpopular breakaway Super League.”
U.K.-based Standard Ethics, which ranks companies based on their environmental, social and governance performances, even downgraded the bank’s corporate sustainability score from “adequate” to “non-compliant” based on its involvement with the league.
JPMorgan itself apologized for the endeavor.
“We clearly misjudged how this deal would be viewed by the wider football community and how it might impact them in the future,” a spokesperson for the bank said. “We will learn from this.”
Nearly two years later, JPMorgan expressed a desire to finance the development of a media business for Italy’s top-tier soccer league, Serie A, in a deal worth up to €1 billion. It wasn’t the only bank to do so; JPMorgan rival Goldman Sachs sent a similar letter to Serie A’s top officials around the same time.
Under that deal, JPMorgan would have provided between €700 million and €1 billion to support the creation of Serie A’s media unit, a source told Reuters.
JPMorgan, more recently, played a role in British billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe's acquisition of a minority stake in Manchester United, Reuters reported. The bank has also advised the World Wrestling Entertainment and Formula One owner Liberty Media, according to the wire service.
JPMorgan’s existing sports financing franchise has financed stadiums for teams in the U.S. and abroad, including the stadium for Real Madrid.
