Bain Capital and Italian asset manager Nextalia SGR have reached an agreement to acquire sports tech provider Deltatre from Bruin Capital.
The deal values Deltatre between $700 and $900 million, according to someone familiar with the terms, who was granted anonymity because the details are private. Bruin, which worked with Evercore to assist with the sale, purchased Deltatre in 2016 in a deal that valued the company at roughly $159 million (€143 million).
Financial terms were not disclosed, nor was the split between Bain and Nextalia SGR.
Deltatre’s business includes back-end streaming technology and website services for some of the world’s biggest sports leagues and governing bodies. Its clients include the NFL, MLB, MLS, FIFA, UEFA, Discovery and the Premier League. The company estimates that its streaming solutions have about 25 million users per day, with revenue expected to be around $180 million in 2022, about half coming from the U.S.
The sale comes as streaming technology becomes an increasingly important part of sports media. Last week MLS became the first major U.S. league to sell its entire broadcast package to a digital media company; meanwhile, regional sports networks like NESN and the Sinclair portfolio are starting to unroll stand-alone digital offerings.
Bruin previously explored a sale of Deltatre back in 2019, before abandoning those efforts in early 2020 due to uncertainty around the COVID-19 pandemic.
Run by former IMG and NASCAR executive George Pyne, Bruin Capital’s investments include analytics firm Two Circles, ad tech firm TGI Sports, golf simulator maker Full Swing, and sports betting affiliate Oddschecker. It is also an investor in CourtsideVC.
Deltatre would be the latest successful exit for Bruin, which also sold a large stake of On Location Experiences to Endeavor in early 2020. The firm raised $600 million in 2019 from CVC Capital Partners and the Jordan Co.
Bain Capital is one of the world’s largest private investment firms, with roughly $160 billion of assets under management across a vast number of different industries, including media and technology. As U.S.-based private equity firms look deeper at sports assets, Bain has explored more direct investments, including reported interest in media rights investments across both Italy’s Serie A and France’s Ligue 1. (In 2005, the firm offered to buy all 30 NHL teams for $3.5 billion.)
Bain’s leadership team includes co-chair Steve Pagliuca, the managing general partner of the NBA’s Boston Celtics.
Nextalia SGR is run by Francesco Canzonieri, alongside a handful of prominent Italian investors. The group is headquartered in Milan; Deltatre was originally headquartered in nearby Turin.