How do you exit an investment in an athlete's name?

You exit an investment in an athlete's name the way you exit any company: by selling it, or a stake in it, once the name has proven what it can earn. The buyers exist. Authentic Brands Group agreed to pay a reported $269 million for 55% of David Beckham's brand company in 2022. Jack Nicklaus sold control of his name, likeness and endorsements for $145 million in 2007. As with any early-stage investment, most names will never reach that point. The ones that do are the reason to own the name at all.

Every one of those sales happened after the athlete stopped competing, while businesses built on athletes' names often sell mid-career. The timing follows from what each one depends on. A brand uses the athlete's peak to launch and then stands on its own. A name depends on the athlete's long-term relevance, and that has to be proven after the sport.

What are the ways money is made around an athlete's name?

Money comes in and around an athlete's name in four ways. Two are recurring income, and two are exits.

• IP licensing. Ongoing revenue from sponsors, endorsements and licensed products that pay to use the name and likeness.
• Media properties. Shows, content companies and productions built around the athlete. They earn recurring revenue and can sometimes be sold.
• BrandCo exit. The sale of a company built on top of the name.
• NameCo exit. The sale of the name itself.

An athlete-name company, or NameCo, is a company that owns an athlete's off-field name and likeness rights and the ventures built on them. A BrandCo is a company that builds a product or business on top of an athlete's name, such as a whiskey or a chess app, usually with outside investors.

Name Equity is the asset class created when the commercial value of an athlete goes beyond the sport, and their name and likeness are held in a company that owns them, so that value can be invested in and grown, rather than rented out to buyers one deal at a time.

Why hold a name in a company if it already earns?

Because the income doesn't need the company. The exit does.

An athlete earns licensing and media income whether or not the name sits in a company. Sponsors pay fees, royalties or stock either way. That is renting the name out: it pays for as long as the deals keep coming, and it has no value of its own that anyone can buy.

Holding the name in a company changes what it is. The income becomes the revenue of a business, and the business has an enterprise value that can be invested in, grown and sold. It's the difference between collecting rent on a building and owning the building. Rent pays every month. Only an owner can sell.

So the case for a NameCo isn't more cash flow. It's equity value: building a name into an asset that someone will pay for as a whole.

Who buys an athlete's name?

The clearest buyer is Authentic Brands Group, a New York company that owns more than 50 consumer brands along with the likeness rights or estates of celebrities. It acquired Muhammad Ali's name and likeness business in 2013, signed Shaquille O'Neal in 2015 to manage his likeness and marketing rights, became the controlling partner of Greg Norman's consumer products business in 2017, and bought 55% of Beckham's brand company in 2022. ABG applies the same model beyond sport: in January 2026, it and Kevin Hart agreed to co-own and manage the Kevin Hart brand, with Hart becoming an ABG shareholder.

ABG isn't the only buyer. Nicklaus's $145 million sale in 2007 went to Nicklaus Companies, which took control of his name, his "Golden Bear" nickname, his likeness, his endorsements and his golf course design business.

Outside sport, Martha Stewart's company was bought by Sequential Brands in 2015 for about $350 million, then sold on to Marquee Brands in 2019 for $175 million, rising to $215 million if targets were met. One name, two buyers, four years apart. It shows a name can trade more than once, and that it can lose value between sales like any other asset.

Why do businesses built on a name sell mid-career, when names don't?

Because a BrandCo uses the athlete's peak of hype and promotability to launch, then becomes independent of the athlete. By the time it sells, the buyer is buying a business in its own category, and the athlete can stay on as the face without being the asset.

Conor McGregor, the former two-division UFC champion, sold his Proper No. Twelve whiskey brand in 2021 to Proximo Spirits, which already owned 49% of it, in a deal reported at up to $600 million, while he was still fighting. Magnus Carlsen, the chess world champion from 2013 to 2023, co-founded Play Magnus Group, which Chess.com agreed to acquire in 2022 in a deal reported at $82 million; Carlsen signed on as a Chess.com ambassador. LeBron James's SpringHill, an entertainment and consumer products company, sold a significant minority stake in 2021 at a $725 million valuation, while James was still playing.

A brand built on a persona is worth more the less it depends on that person. Part of making it sellable is reducing key-person risk, which means reducing its reliance on the name. A spirits company can price a whiskey brand on its sales, with or without the founder. A name can never be separated from the person, so it gets priced on the person's whole commercial life.

For a NameCo, these sales are also interim liquidity. Because a NameCo owns the ventures built on the name, a BrandCo sale returns money to the NameCo's investors before the name itself is ever sold.

Why are athletes' names only bought after the career?

Because a NameCo depends on the athlete's long-term relevance, so the name has to prove it keeps its value after the sport. By the time Beckham, Shaq or Nicklaus sold, that proof existed: years of deals after their last game, a public that knew them outside the sport, and earnings that no longer depended on competing. A buyer could underwrite it.

During the career, the name is usually rented out one deal at a time, with no company, no valuation and no record of what it earns as a business. No institutional investor is publicly known to have taken equity in an athlete's name company during the career. The one serious attempt at investing in athletes mid-career, Fantex, which from 2014 sold investors stock tied to a share of NFL players' brand income and closed its trading platform in 2016, bought a slice of income, not the name.

Music shows the gap can close. In 1997, David Bowie raised $55 million from bonds backed by the royalties of 25 of his albums. In 2023, Justin Bieber, at 28, sold his publishing and recorded-music rights to Hipgnosis Songs Capital for a reported $200 million. Shamrock Capital bought Taylor Swift's first six masters in 2020 and sold them in 2025, to Swift, for a reported $360 million. Buyers paid for one person's IP mid-career because that IP had an earnings record they could price. A song catalog is a body of finished work, not a name. But the principle carries over: a buyer pays for a record of earnings, and a name held and run as a business starts building that record during the career instead of after it.

What happens to the NameCos that don't make it?

If every athlete and every singer put their name in a company, very few would build a name a buyer would pay for. That's true of any early-stage asset class. In venture capital, most startups fail and a small number return the fund.

The failed NameCos go back to the athlete, who is the natural buyer of a name that no one else wants. The successful ones are sold, and those sales are the return. The goal of a NameCo was never to rent out the name and buy it back later. It was to build something worth selling.

Who is building names to sell?

Ownership of a person's commercial identity is spreading across every kind of celebrity: athletes, creators, musicians and actors. Besides ABG's deal with Kevin Hart, CHAMP, launched in April 2026 by L Catterton and Patricof Co, makes athletes co-owners of the brands it invests in. Capital already owns the brands next to a name and the catalogs a person leaves behind.

In sport, individual sports are the first wave. F1 drivers and fighters are promoted as individuals more than almost any other athletes, so their names can be built the most. Team-sport stars build names in front of much bigger audiences, but those sports value performance over entertainment, so the lever for building a name is less in the athlete's control. There, buying established names will be more attractive than building them.

First Light, an operator-investor in athlete IP, is built on the other half of that: it takes equity in the company that owns an athlete's name and likeness during the career, then operates it to increase its value, so the name is an asset with a record by the time a buyer looks at it. No athlete's name is publicly known to have been bought as an asset by an institutional investor during a career. Someone will fill that gap.

A question for investors

What would you need to see before buying a stake in an athlete's name?