These are boom times to be selling minority stakes in indoor golf franchises.<\/p>\n
On Friday afternoon, the TGL announced that the LAGC will receive a new minority ownership stake from Ilitch Sports and Entertainment. The ownership group behind the Detroit Tigers and Red Wings will join an ownership group that includes Reddit founder and majority owner Alexis Ohanian and a deep bench of minority owners including Serena and Venus Williams, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Alex Morgan, Michelle Wie West, Shonda Rhimes and\u00a0Good Good Golf.<\/p>\n
Financial terms of the agreement were not released, but several fascinating components of Ilitch\u2019s investment in the TGL were announced. As part of Ilitch\u2019s investment in the LAGC, IS+E will \u201cserve as LAGC\u2019s sponsorship agency of record and act as an extension of LAGC\u2019s internal team\u201d \u2014 a move that effectively multiplies the sales efforts of the LAGC franchise as its second season readies to begin in January.<\/p>\n
The decision will allow IS+E to \u201cleverage its network and expertise in sponsorship sales, brand development, data analytics, broadcasting and media\u201d to help the LAGC brand grow.<\/p>\n
The Ilitch family\u2019s investment in LAGC comes at an interesting time for the TGL, which will begin its second season at the Sofi Center in Palm Beach Gardens in January. The indoor simulator golf league debuted to surprisingly strong TV numbers on ESPN in 2024, bringing golf to primetime weeknights in concert with the bulk of the PGA Tour season. Last week, the league announced a slew of changes aimed at improving the league\u2019s competitive product in year two, including\u00a0dramatically expanding the size and shape of the putting green.<\/p>\n
The announcement also comes at an interesting time for the Illitches. The Illitch family investment in the TGL is notable for who it is\u00a0not\u00a0pairing with: Motor City G.C., owned by the Ford Family, also known as the longtime stewards of the\u00a0other\u00a0major Detroit sports organization, the Lions.<\/p>\n
In addition to owning and operating the fast food chain Little Caesars, the Illitches maintain majority stakes in both the Tigers and Red Wings, and operate the majority of their businesses out of Detroit. They are believed to have a strong relationship with the Fords, including in their shared funding of a\u00a0downtown arena district\u00a0at the turn of the century.<\/p>\n
\u201cLAGC is reimagining how fans experience golf,\u201d Ryan Gustafson, the president and CEO of Illitch Sports and Entertainment said in a release. \u201cJoining LAGC puts us at the center of that transformation.\u201d<\/p>\n
This post originated on Golf.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"These are boom times to be selling minority stakes in indoor golf franchises. On Friday afternoon, the TGL…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241875,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85,122908],"class_list":{"0":"post-241874","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-tgl"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241874","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=241874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241874\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}