Fresh Fresh finally securing a career grand slam with a fascinating victory at The Masters, Rory Mcilroy, the second player of the world player, rounds another corner of his life: investing.
Mr Mcilroy’s investment firm, Symphony Ventures, is working with TPG private shares to launch TPG Sports, an investment fund that will place bets on businesses across the sports industry.
Mr Mcilroy started Symphony Ventures with his business partner, Sean O’Flaherty, in 2019. Both men will serve as partners for TPG Sports.
“We talked about what the next step for us is,” Mr Mcilroy said in an interview. “Time was right.”
Mr Mcilroy’s growing immersion in the business is not uncommon among his big golf. Tiger Woods, Greg Norman and Jack Nicklaus have built all the big business portfolios around the golf and beyond. But his collaboration with TPG comes as record dollars flow into sports. Competition by media companies on premium live content has led to the valuations of traditional teams and created the demand for new ones.
“Sport is undergoing a large transformation,” Mr Mcilroy said. “There is a lot of investment in the sports world and we are trying to make it more professional – and try to bring it to the 21st century.”
Mr Mcilroy takes advantage of these opportunities. Symphony Ventures investments include Golf Genius, a golf tournament platform and Pittery, a fascinating mini golf experience. In 2022, Mr Mcilroy also founded a company that helped create TGL, a high -tech golf championship based on the team, which has attracted investors such as Arthur Blank, co -founder of Home Depot and the owner of Falcons of Atlanta and Steven Cohen, owner of New York.
Mr Mcilroy’s investment focus led him to TPG. The company brought him as an investor to some of its previous agreements, such as its share in Troon, the Golf Court Management Company in 2021.
TPG is making its official invasion of sports, as investors face a volatile landscape, with President Trump invoices hitting the stock market and analysts saying that a recession is becoming more and more likely.
“Probably the best opportunities we’ve seen and invested in the last 30 years have also come in moments of uncertainty,” said Todd Sisitsky, president of TPG. TPG launches TPG Sports with a safe investment commitment from LUNATE, an investment fund based in Abu Dhabi. TPG did not reveal the size of this investment.
TPG manages more than $ 200 billion in assets and has extensive experience in the media industry, which is increasingly linked to sports. Among these agreements is the Directv and Creative Artists service.
Mr Mcilroy brings a different experience. As a former member of the PGA Tour Policy Board influence, he was briefly in the first lines of talks between the PGA tour and the Saudi Arabian wealth. (Talks have stopped since then.) He fell down in 2023 to focus on his golf, his family – and his growing investment portfolio.
“I just felt something had to give,” Mr Mcilroy said at that time.
Some of his bets may take years to bloom. At the moment, Mr Mcilroy is looking for a victory in this month’s PGA Championship.
