{"id":117529,"date":"2025-09-04T05:58:16","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T05:58:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/117529\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T05:58:16","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T05:58:16","slug":"former-wests-tigers-powerbrokers-justin-pascoe-and-lee-hagipantelis-buy-canadian-basketball-team-ottawa-blackjacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/117529\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Wests Tigers powerbrokers Justin Pascoe and Lee Hagipantelis buy Canadian basketball team Ottawa BlackJacks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cThe [Dallas] Cowboys are worth in excess of $US12 billion; you see what\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.smh.com.au\/link\/follow-20170101-p5lyqg\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">happening with Wrexham<\/a>. There\u2019s certainly a niche market out there for undervalued, performing sports assets that don\u2019t just need capital, [but] that need some operational experience and expertise to attach to the capital.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Loading<\/p>\n<p>Pascoe said his firm had had \u201cover 100 opportunities presented to us\u201d over the past year, but opted for the BlackJacks because of the upside they see in the Canadian league.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBasketball to us is a growing sport, globally,\u201d he said. \u201cOur belief was ice hockey is still the No.1 sport over there, but basketball, with the immigration and the demographic shift in Canada, is growing daily. It\u2019s the highest growth sport in terms of percentage increase.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve seen what [majority National Basketball League owner] Larry Kestelman has been able to do with the NBL here, and there\u2019s no reason why we can\u2019t try and emulate that, literally on the border of the NBA.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Pascoe describes the Canadian league as being \u201cwhere the NBL was six or seven years ago\u201d, with the potential for exponential growth. He points to Craig Hutchison\u2019s recent sale of the Perth Wildcats for $40 million, just three years after picking them up for $8.5 million.<\/p>\n<p>Loading<\/p>\n<p>Hagipantelis said the purchase of English soccer club Wrexham AFC by Hollywood actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney was an example of astute purchasing and marketing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s an example of an extraordinarily successful business model of developing an underdeveloped sporting franchise and growing that,\u201d Hagipantelis said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFinding capital is not difficult, it\u2019s finding smart capital that is difficult. It\u2019s about finding people who can bring more than money to the table.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>GSFMG also has a wholesale venture capital fund arm that allows investors to be part of the journey. Asked if potential investors would be wary given their lack of success at the helm of Wests Tigers, Pascoe said: \u201cThe Tigers experience is a footnote in our careers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe real story is the global reach we provide \u2013 we have businesses set up in the UK, Canada, USA and Australia, private equity expertise, and a pipeline of opportunities we are opening up for our investors today. Having zero restrictions on how we operate as the owners of GSF has enabled both Lee and I to perform at the appropriate level to ensure our expertise is applied to create value.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>NRL is Live and Free on Channel 9 &amp; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.9now.com.au\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">9Now<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThe [Dallas] Cowboys are worth in excess of $US12 billion; you see what\u2019s happening with Wrexham. There\u2019s certainly&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":117530,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-117529","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nrl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-national-rugby-league","11":"tag-nationalrugbyleague","12":"tag-nrl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}