Late last year, Theo Epstein — the baseball executive whose work helped both the Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs to landmark World Series victories — stepped down from his role at the Cubs. Unsurprisingly, there was no small amount of speculation as to what his next step might be. What do you do, after all, when you’ve already ended title droughts for a pair of storied teams?
Last month, Epstein joined Major League Baseball as a consultant, but that’s not his only significant move this year. Last week, the Chicago Tribune reported that Epstein has joined Arctos Sports Partners as an Executive-In-Residence. The Tribune described Arctos as “a private-equity firm that buys minority shares of teams and works with owners and leagues in professional sports to increase liquidity and financial flexibility for ownership groups.”
On Friday, Sportico reported that Arctos Sports Partners has filed for a $275 million SPAC, called Arctos NorthStar; Epstein will be its CEO. If you’re unfamiliar with the acronym SPAC, it stands for “special purpose acquisition company,” and this article can tell you more about what SPACs are and why they’ve become so popular recently.
Epsten isn’t the only experienced sports executive involved with Arctos NorthStar. Among the other figures in the mix are Tomago Collins of Kroenke Sports & Entertainment and Xavier Gutierrez of the Arizona Coyotes.
The analysis from Scott Soshnick and Brendan Coffey at Sportico suggests “a likely expansion of corporate activities into sports-adjacent businesses, beyond sports teams.” Given the people involved with this new venture, it certainly seems like the start of something big.
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