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FILE – NFC coach Eli Manning cheers on his players during the tug of war event at the NFL Pro Bowl football game in Orlando, Fla., Feb. 2, 2025. (AP Photo\/John Raoux, File)<\/p>\n
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved<\/p>\n
Brand Velocity Group, a private equity firm whose partners include former New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning, has acquired RCX Sports, a company that manages and controls the official youth sports licenses for most major U.S. professional leagues.<\/p>\n
BVG bought RCX from the Raine Group, a merchant bank. The companies would not disclose financial terms of the deal, although they said the RCX brand and leadership team will remain intact, including CEO Izell Reese who played in 93 NFL games as a defensive back from 1998 through 2004.<\/p>\n
RCX is the youth sports operating partner for the NFL, NBA, WNBA, NHL, Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer. The company works with local parks and recreation departments, YMCAs and Boys and Girls Clubs and for a fee provides officially licensed uniforms, equipment and support for leagues, tournaments and events.<\/p>\n
RCX\u2019s largest partner is NFL Flag, the league\u2019s youth flag football initiative. More than 800,000 children participate in NFL Flag leagues, up from 500,000 when<\/a> RCX took over the license in the fall of 2019.<\/p>\n \u201cI jokingly tell people a lot of time when I\u2019m trying to explain it that we\u2019re like Little League Baseball meets Fanatics,\u201d Reese said. \u201cThe pro leagues\u2019 (intellectual property and trademarks) all go through us when a local rec organization wants to run these programs.\u201d<\/p>\n Instead of raising a fund, BVG capitalizes its investments on a deal-by-deal basis. For this transaction, BVG\u2019s limited partners included investment firms Hamilton Lane and St. Cloud Capital, as well as NFL Hall of Famers Peyton Manning, Emmitt Smith and Larry Fitzgerald, current NFL players DK Metcalf and Jameis Winston and Dallas Mavericks guard Klay Thompson.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone\u2019s investing real dollars,\u201d said Austin Ramos, a BVG partner who founded the company in 2019 with Steve Lebowitz and Drew Sheinman. \u201cIt\u2019s not a, \u2018Hey, let us give you some equity for your name to be associated with this.\u2019 There are enough people with real brands themselves that truly care about RCX and the mission RCX has, so everyone\u2019s invested real dollars and is very aligned in supporting Izell and his mission.\u201d<\/p>\n Reese said that he has been in contact with some of the investors, including Smith, his former teammate with the Dallas Cowboys.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel like I\u2019m back in the locker room and he\u2019s drilling me like I was a rookie,\u201d Reese said. \u201cEvery other comment he makes is, \u2018How can I help?\u2019 These are individuals, they\u2019re not just a name, they\u2019re strategic and mission-aligned. They truly believe in the transformational power of sports and youth sports and they\u2019re willing to put in their time, energy, effort, brain power, leadership and resources to be a part of that.\u201d<\/p>\n Eli Manning, who led the Giants to two Super Bowl victories, joined<\/a> BVG as a partner in 2021, one year after retiring from the NFL. He was involved in BVG\u2019s acquisition<\/a> in 2022 of Score Sports, a designer, manufacturer and seller of youth sports uniforms and equipment. Manning, who has been involved promoting<\/a> NFL Flag for years, also aided BVG in its acquisition of RCX.<\/p>\n \u201cHe helped with a lot of the coordination as we thought about bringing the deal together with the right individuals,\u201d Ramos said. \u201cHe is already neck deep in that (flag football) world because he is so passionate about it.\u201d<\/p>\n Reese said that the NFL and other leagues want RCX to not charge as much as it could for the flag football leagues and focus more on increasing participation. RCX also earns money by offering leagues support such as training coaches and officials and helping with registration. <\/p>\n \u201cThe price points have continued to steadily rise for these organizations, but that\u2019s not the case with us,\u201d Reese said. \u201cWith us, it\u2019s meant to stay at a very low price point even though it\u2019s a pro league\u2019s IP, which could easily be substantially more\u2026.It\u2019s a mandate to keep these programs low-cost and affordable and build the model more off of scale.\u201d<\/p>\n