Eleven Sports acquires Team Whistle
March 30, 2021
Eleven Sports has announced the acquisition of New York-based global sports media and entertainment company Team Whistle, in a move that expands Eleven’s operations to North America and accelerates the Group’s plans to create a global sports media destination. The deal is subject to HSR approval.
The acquisition will bring together Eleven Sports’ 150+ commercial partners, 20 million+ users and 30,000 hours of live sport each year;with Team Whistle’s slate of original programming, 1,655 distribution channels, 629 million aggregated social media followers and 4billion monthly video views. The Eleven Group says it will house a network of OTT and social platforms; proprietary streaming technology; data driven production capabilities; and marketing and brand partnership services.
The newly expanded Eleven Group is building on the strong performance of Eleven Sports’ operations in Europe and Asia and Team Whistle in North America, in the face of Covid-19. Pro forma revenues for the combined Group will be in excess of $300million for the financial year ending June 30th, 2021.
Eleven’s parent company, the sports and media investment platform Aser Ventures, first identified opportunities for synergy with Team Whistle three years ago. Aser invested in Whistle in June 2018 and Aser’s founder Andrea Radrizzani joined the Whistle board.
Radrizzani commented: “We have long recognised the opportunities for partnership between Team Whistle and the wider Aser portfolio. By welcoming Team Whistle into the Eleven Group, we are bringing together two media companies who have a track record of building strong and innovative sports media businesses in Europe, Asia and North America. We will also be adding transformative new scale and capabilities to Eleven. Together, we look forward to delivering on our goal of creating a global destination for LIVE and on-demand sports content for audiences everywhere to enjoy.”
John West, Team Whistle Founder and Executive Chairman, added: “Upon first meeting Andrea [Radrizzani] years ago, we shared a common bond on how sport and entertainment were being reimagined and now with the pace of media transformation happening at an accelerated rate globally, joining forces with Eleven allows us to create a truly unique, global media powerhouse.”
Luis Vicente, Eleven Sports Group Chief Executive Officer, said: “At Eleven we are committed to building a world leading sports and entertainment ecosystem for fans and partners around the world. Team Whistle will play a huge part in helping us to deliver on that mission.”
Michael Cohen, Team Whistle Chief Executive Officer, added: “We are excited to join such a talented group of people who share our vision of media and collaborative culture. We have a long history of successfully working together and with Eleven’s deeper partnership we will be able to rapidly accelerate our growth.”
Eleven Sports and Team Whistle’s investors currently include Sapphire Sport, Go4itCapital, Carsten Thoma, NBC/Sky Sports, Discovery, ITV, Liberty Global, Snap, Emil Capital Partners, Corrum Capital, TEGNA, Jeffrey Katzenberg’s WndrCo, Derek Jeter, Peyton Manning, Ron Howard, Brian Grazer and Elizabeth Murdoch.
The transaction is expected to close by the second quarter of 2021 and is subject to customary closing conditions. BofA Securities acted as financial advisor to the Eleven Group for this transaction.