Range Media Gets Verance Investment for Sports Arm

Talent representation and content production start-up Range Media has gotten a venture capital investment from Verance Capital, a sports and media specialist.

The investment, to be announced Wednesday, adds a well-known backer in the sports investing space to help Range expand its sports efforts. Verance’s chief is Lyle Ayes, who was an operating partner at RedBird Capital and the head of sports advisory at LionTree. Verance, founded in 2020, has 16 disclosed investments, including digital media management platform Greenfly and Giannis Antetokounmpo’s Improbable Media. Ayes is also vice chairman of MLS’ Houston Dynamo. Former ESPN head John Skipper, longtime sports executive Sophie Goldschmidt and DraftKings’ head of strategy Malcolm Turner are part of Verance’s advisory board.

“We’ve been continuously impressed with Range since its launch and have had the opportunity to work with them commercially to see their impact firsthand,” said Ayes in an email to Sportico. “They’ve quickly cemented themselves as leaders in sports and entertainment and, given Verance’s expertise across these verticals, as well as our longstanding relationship with Range Sports’ leadership team, this made for a natural partnership.”

The size of the investment into Range isn’t being publicly disclosed, but Verance has typically taken minority stakes in targets by committing capital ranging from $6 million to $24 million, according to information on Verance’s investments compiled by S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Range was formed in 2020 by a number of Hollywood agents in what Variety termed “the biggest startup in Hollywood’s talent representation sector in years.” The organization formed Range Sports in 2022 and now counts dozens of athletes and organizations among its clients, including Olympian Gabby Thomas and the New York Mets.

Range already has a series of high-profile investors. It was originally backed by Mets owner and hedge fund billionaire Steve Cohen, through Cohen’s Point72 Ventures, and in 2022 got a capital infusion from A+E Networks, which valued Range at that time at $225 million. This April they were joined by Wall Street billionaire and Seattle Kraken owner David Bonderman (who invested through his family office, Wildcat Capital Management), the John Malone-led Liberty Global, as well as Evolution Media founder Rick Hess. Forest Road Asset Management LLC led the investment group in the April round. Playground Productions also invested in the round.

Range’s philosophy is that talent is the core around which to build scripted and unscripted content. In sports, Range’s strategy is to acquire growth-stage companies within media rights, athlete marketing, football, golf, Olympic and women’s sports.

(This has been corrected to clarify that Liberty Global, not Liberty Media, made the April investment, and updated to include more information about the Steve Cohen and David Bonderman investments.)