Bright Path Sports PE Backed by Native American, Billionaire Funds

That an American private equity firm bought a large stake in an English soccer club isn’t unique—nearly half of the clubs in the top two tiers of competition have American owners. What is different with Bright Path Sports Partners and its £120 million buy of 44% of Ipswich Town this spring is that the PE firm is backed largely by Native American capital. Ipswich is the first tribal investment in English soccer, one of many sports firsts Cleveland-based Bright Path seeks to forge.

“Part of our mission is to flip the script, especially in the American big four where we’ve had no problem appropriating Native American names, logos and traditions advancing our sport, but across the ownership stack it’s hard if not impossible to find [Native] ownership,” said Phil Ciano, a co-founder and managing partner of Bright Path.

The Ipswich Town buy is the first investment from Bright Path, which began courting investors three years ago to fund purchases in the sports, media and entertainment space. While it took some time from conception to its first investment, additional sports deals appear imminent. Ciano says Bright Path is doing due diligence on five more buys, including two media properties and two equity stakes in franchises in the “big four” (MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL), one of which offers controlling ownership.

While the fund is relatively new, its principals have a long track record in investing and sports deals. An attorney by trade, Ciano has helped build team-buying syndicates and represented players unions, agents and agencies in various capacities at his firm Ciano & Goldwasser. A few years ago he found himself handling a deal involving a Detroit family office led by Jake Zahnow and Jim LaPorte that managed capital derived from extensive financing of tribal casinos in Michigan. Zahnow, a corporate M&A veteran, and LaPorte, a full member of the Little River band of Ottawa Indians, struck on the idea that sports investing would be an ideal way to help Native American tribes deploy their money.

“The Native American population is not only large, but it’s wealthy and very sophisticated, but they don’t get the same opportunities that many other investors get,” said Zahnow, Bright Path’s chief financial officer, on a phone call. “Native Americans want to invest in sports because they not only think it’s a good business opportunity but they are also looking for some cultural elevation … [meaning] ‘we’re here, we’re successful, we want to provide opportunities for our people and we want people to know who we are.’” Their approach, added Zahnow, is similar to endowments and sovereign wealth funds, in that the goal is managing wealth in perpetuity, for the proverbial seventh generation from today.

The firm leans heavily into its American Indian backing—the name Bright Path is the English translation of the given name of Jim Thorpe, a Sac and Fox Nation member who arguably is the greatest athlete ever, having excelled as an Olympian and as a pro in MLB, NFL and with a barnstorming basketball team.

But it’s not exclusively tribal capital, having brought in Marc Lasry’s Avenue Capital, Florida Panthers billionaire owner Vincent Viola and family-owned minor league hockey specialists Simon Sports as partners in Ipswich Town.

The timing of that deal worked out swimmingly for Bright Path. The firm started focusing on Ipswich early last year, when it was still in League One, the third level of English soccer purgatory. Between raising the money and locking in the minority stake, Ipswich Town got itself promoted twice, and it’s now above the relegation zone in the young Premier League season. Ipswich Town made £14.4 million in revenue in League One. It’ll probably make £150 million in the Premier League this year. The average Premier League club is worth $1.51 billion. Bright Path isn’t looking to cash in any time soon, however.  

“There is an ever-increasing amount of investment towards media rights in a content-starved world. Soccer is the largest sport in the world and the English football pyramid is the tip of that spear,” said Zahnow. “We are under no timeline constraints to exit this investment, unlike other private equity firms.”

If Bright Path doesn’t have the typical five-to-seven-year exit framework that most PE works under, it also differs in how it structures itself. The firm doesn’t have a pool of capital it has raised that it then looks to invest. Instead, Bright Path pitches deals to its network of investors who elect to participate or not. That means Lasry, Viola and Simon may not be investors in the next deal, though multiple tribes will be backers of the pending deals Bright Path is advancing, according to the firm.

Deal-wise, Bright Path is agnostic on size, sports and league, though it is largely focused on North America and Europe and situations that can lead to a control ownership position in the future, according to the executives. They are also of the opinion the major North American sports will continue to provide the kind of long-term appreciation that has marked the pro leagues the past 30 years.

“Particularly in the U.S. big four, it’s a wonderful opportunity for Native American tribes that have the desire and the financial wherewithal to make these investments,” said Ciano. “We believe that once the leagues begin to embrace our mission, it will only enhance participation, cultural elevation and awareness. The leagues are very keen on diversity—at least verbally.”