Sports media company DAZN Group is reportedly engaged in talks with TPG to sell the Goal.com, largest football news website in the world. DAZG Group’s billionaire owner Len Blavatnik is aiming to raise $125 million from the deal.
DAZN Group the American investment firm TPG, formerly Texas Pacific Group, are in the last stages of negotiations to close the deal. The talks had started late last year as part of DAZN’s plans to focus and grow the cash-intensive streaming business.
DAZN under the terms of the sale will continue to work with Goal, which offers content in 19 languages.
The company last year had hired Goldman Sachs to explore fund-raising options, including the sale of an equity stake. The need for funding has become more acute in recent months with DAZN’s OTT operation hit hard by the Covid-19 shutdown.
TPG, which has investments in a broad range of other media and entertainment companies, including Spotify and the Creative Artists Agency, would be acquiring Goal through one of its affiliates, according to people familiar with the discussions, who declined to be identified because the deal had yet to close.
DAZG, formerly the Perform Group, had acquired Goal in 2007 for £ 18m ($22.5m)
In September 2018, Perform Group had divided its assets to create two separate divisions – Goal.com and the SportingNews and Spox.com websites were housed under DAZN Group, which also includes the OTT streaming business and the global rights partnerships operations. The data and betting sides of the business became part of the Perform Content operation, which then merged with US-based sports, data and technology company Stats as part of an investment by Vista Equity Partners, the US private equity and venture capital firm.