The New York Yankees’ owner, Yankee Global Enterprises, forms a strategic alliance and purchases a minority stock investment.
Today, RedBird Capital Partners (“RedBird”) announced that it had successfully paid €1.2 billion to acquire Associazione Calcio Milan (“AC Milan,” “Milan,” or the “club”).
AC Milan has been associated with football at the highest level of championship play for 123 years. Nine Champions Leagues/European Cups, seven Supercoppa Italianas, five Coppa Italias, five European Super Cups, three Intercontinental Cups, two European Cup Winners’ Cups, and one FIFA Club World Cup have been won by AC Milan since its inception in 1899.
Building on the successes of the previous season, which resulted in the club’s Serie A championship, RedBird, the new owner of AC Milan, will continue to make significant investments in all the areas that will further the Club’s sports and economic interests.
With RedBird’s background in managing and expanding international sports companies, AC Milan’s next chapter will continue to build on its current success.
Supporting the club’s business and sporting leadership to maintain the team’s competitiveness at the highest levels of football, making sure the organization has the facilities and infrastructure worthy of one of the biggest sports organizations in the world, and bolstering the women’s and youth teams as well as the club’s charitable arm, Fondazione Milan, are priority areas of focus.
“Our vision for Milan is clear: we will support our talented players, coaches, and staff to deliver success on the pitch and allow our fans to share in the extraordinary experiences of this historic club,” RedBird Founder and Managing Partner Gerry Cardinale stated.
In order to achieve our single objective of keeping Milan at the top of both European and international football, we will try to capitalize on our extensive global network of sports and media, our proficiency in analytics, our history of building sports stadiums, and our reputation for hospitality.”
As part of the agreement, the club that owns a minority equity position in AC Milan, Yankee Global Enterprises (YGE), the owner of one of the most valuable sports franchises in the world, will also form a strategic alliance with the club. RedBird and I have a long-standing partnership
with the Yankees and the Steinbrenner family, with whom it shares ownership of the nation’s most viewed regional sports network, the Yankees Entertainment Sports (YES) Network.
“We have a multi-decade relationship with the New York Yankees and the Steinbrenner family that has resulted in the creation of some of the most successful businesses in sports, entertainment, and hospitality,” Mr. Cardinale stated regarding the alliance with YGE. We are excited to keep working with them and will seek for ways to work together to increase our fan base and open up new business prospects that are exclusive to teams that compete at the world’s top levels of sports.”
After the Milan deal is completed, RedBird will have roughly $7.5 billion in assets under management. In addition, RedBird’s portfolio of international sports and entertainment ventures now includes AC Milan in addition to Fenway Sports Group (which owns the Boston Red Sox, Pittsburgh Penguins, and Liverpool FC), Toulouse FC, the Dream Sports, OneTeam Partners, the XFL, Toulouse FC, the Rajasthan Royals, the YES Network, the SpringHill Company, Skydance Media, and the Boston Red Sox and Pittsburgh Penguins.
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