Pro sports teams are the hottest institutional asset class, and private equity wants a piece of the action.
Recently, KKR & Co. said it agreed to acquire Arctos Partners in a transaction first valued at $1.4B, with an additional $550M depending on performance and KKR share-price targets.
Arctos is one of the only approved entities for ownership across all five major U.S. leagues (NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, and MLS).
Since KKR acquired Arctos, it has gained immediate access to a “sticky” sector with strong global demand and long-term value.
Arcto’s strategy is to leverage its sports-specific knowledge alongside GP solutions to plug into KKR’s global distribution machine.
In 2025, secondary volume hit a record $226B, according to Evercore-reported data. Limited Partners (LPs) and managers don’t want to wait for IPO windows and are looking for ways to exit and secure liquidity amid cash-strapped conditions.
If the market sentiment holds to GP-led activity and more secondaries, KKR wants a larger seat.
The structure of the deal is designed to maintain the Arctos team:
Initial Transaction of $1.4 billion (equity subject to vesting 2033) $300 million cash
Additional $550 million in future equity
Rest: KKR equity with long vesting timelines
Arctos was founded in 2019 by Doc O’Connor and Ian Charles, and it grew to manage $15 billion in Assets Under Management (AUM).
As of mid-February 2026, Nuttall and Bae purchased hundreds of thousands of shares respectively at prices ranging from $100 to $103, signaling strong confidence.
In mid-February 2026 alone, Nuttall and Bae purchased hundreds of thousands of shares at prices ranging from $100 to $103, signaling strong internal confidence in the firm’s post-acquisition trajectory.
Beyond the box-office appeal of the NFL and NBA, the “Arctos Keystone” platform gives KKR non–dilutive capital in other private markets first as the sector expands and fund managers seek out-of-the-box ways to finance growth without selling off firms.
More importantly, it moves KKR’s AUM mix. After the close, long-dated capital & perpetual will represent over half, 53% of KKR’s overall $759B AUM.
The NFL, out of all the leagues, remains the most strict, with rules like a 10% cap for private equity ownership and requiring investors to remain strictly “passive” with no voting rights or control within operations.
Jodi Balsam, a Professor of Sports Law at Brooklyn Law School and former NFL Counsel for Operations and Litigation, notes that while the legal structure enforces passivity, the reality of names like KKR’s scale carries weight.
KKR’s acquisition of Arctos provides the PE giant with access to a safe, exclusive asset class without disrupting the intricate nature of the NFL’s ownership structure.
The ‘passive’ label remains both the NFL’s & legal standards, and KKR’s institutional expertise, and other private equity entity rules were initially why the league relaxed its rules on private equity in the first place.
KKR’s absorption of Arctos isn’t automatic, as the NFL possesses absolute discretion to vet new PE entities, retaining a “veto power” over KKR substitution for Arctos, and any new institutional partner for that matter, to ensure the league’s intense ownership standards are met.
As Balsam noted, this relationship with private equity may not be malignant, but rather a natural evolution for franchises facing tax consequences and succession hurdles for teams mostly owned by billionaire families.
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