Sports Franchise & Rights Financing
Franchise interests, media rights, and sports-business assets don't fit a bank's collateral checklist. They fit ours. GLG places $1M to $100M in private capital against the assets conventional lenders won't underwrite — ownership stakes, broadcast rights, and the businesses built around them.
Apply now →Start with why the obvious lender says no. A bank underwrites collateral it can seize and sell in 90 days. A minority stake in a franchise, a rights contract, or a media-revenue stream doesn't liquidate on that timeline, and most of it can't be transferred without league sign-off in the first place. That's not a small footnote. It's the reason this category sits almost entirely outside conventional credit.
Private capital underwrites it differently, and the difference is what the lender actually needs to see:
Valuation of the interest. Not a hope-number. A defensible mark on the ownership stake or rights asset, supported by comparable transactions, revenue multiples, or a third-party appraisal where one exists. If the only valuation on file is what the borrower thinks it's worth, the file doesn't move.
Transfer and approval mechanics. League-approval requirements, right-of-first-refusal clauses, and any restriction on assignment or pledge get read line by line. A lender needs to know exactly what happens if they ever have to step into the collateral — and if the answer is "the league can block it," that shapes the structure, not just the terms.
Revenue visibility. Media and broadcast rights get underwritten against the actual contract: term remaining, counterparty credit, renewal risk, and whether the revenue is contracted or projected. Contracted cash flow with a real counterparty behind it underwrites very differently than a projection built on optimism.
Use of proceeds. Corporate, investment, or production/operations — the use changes the structure. A bridge to close an acquisition is priced and sized differently than working capital against a rights contract already in force.
None of this is a workaround. It's the actual underwriting logic private lenders in this space use in place of a conventional borrowing base, and it's why a prior "no" from a bank or another broker usually reflects a fit problem, not a fatal one.
This category doesn't move on a published rate sheet. It moves on the specifics of the asset, the structure around it, and who's actually willing to underwrite it — which is why every deal here is quoted individually, not priced off a grid. No cost to apply, no credit pull to get a read, and an underwriter on the phone within one business day. Tell us what the last lender said, and let's find out if the deal was ever the problem.