New Zealand’s SailGP team, the Black Foils, has landed the investment deal it needed to stay in the global sailing league, with New York private equity firm MSP Sports Capital buying a majority stake ahead of this weekend’s Canada Grand Prix in Halifax. The agreement makes the Black Foils the thirteenth and final team in the SailGP fleet to move into private ownership, and it removes the question mark that had hung over the side captained by Olympic gold medallists Peter Burling and Blair Tuke.
The Black Foils were the last boat in the competition without a private backer, and they had risked dropping out of the championship altogether if they could not find one. Every other team had already secured outside money, leaving the New Zealand entry exposed under a league model where SailGP centrally owns the boats and technology while each team covers its own operating budget. Finding an investor was, in plain terms, the difference between racing on and quietly disappearing from the start line.
Burling and Tuke set the team up and have run it since the league began, and both will stay on as co-chief executives despite the change of ownership. That continuity matters for a side built around the two sailors who won America’s Cups with Emirates Team New Zealand and an Olympic 49er gold medal together. Burling called the deal an important milestone and the start of what he described as an exciting new chapter, telling reporters that MSP were world-class partners with an understanding of elite sport. Tuke said that from the very beginning he and Burling had set out to make the Black Foils a world-class team and sporting brand in every area, and that they were thrilled to partner with MSP and keep building.
Neither side put a figure on what the majority stake cost. What is known is that SailGP team valuations have climbed sharply, with franchises now said to be worth more than US$60 million, or roughly NZ$104 million, this year. That growth is the whole point of the league’s design. SailGP founder Sir Russell Coutts said the goal had always been to build something that world-class investors and sports operators would want to own, and the sale of the final team is the clearest sign yet that the model is working as intended. A league that started life heavily funded by tech billionaire Larry Ellison has, team by team, handed the financial risk and reward to outside owners.
MSP Sports Capital is not a passive name on a share register. The firm is led by veteran American investor-operators Jeff Moorad and Jahm Najafi, and its portfolio spans some of the best known properties in world sport. MSP has held stakes in McLaren Racing in Formula One, Everton in the English Premier League, the X Games, and a string of European football clubs including Brøndby in Denmark, FC Augsburg in Germany and SK Beveren in Belgium. The team’s principals have experience across Major League Baseball, the NBA, the NFL and elite motorsport. Moorad said Burling and Tuke were the best in the world at what they did and that the firm was delighted to partner with them.
For New Zealand fans, the deal lands at a useful moment. The Black Foils arrive in Halifax with a new boat after wrecking their previous F50, with the replacement craft named Manawatītī. The team has also brought in grinder Stewart Dodson to cover for the injured Louis Sinclair, and has switched the colour of the sailors’ helmets from blue to red to make crew easier to spot in the water if anyone goes overboard. Those are the unglamorous details of a sport where the boats fly above the waves at speeds that leave little room for error.
The wider story here is about how a young sport funds itself. SailGP has deliberately copied the franchise economics of American leagues, where teams are tradeable assets whose value rises as the competition grows its audience and its broadcast reach. Selling all thirteen teams to private owners gives the league a base of committed investors who have every reason to push for bigger crowds, better media deals and more sponsorship. It also shifts the financial burden off the league’s central books and onto owners who believe the franchises will keep appreciating.
There is a national-interest angle too. The Black Foils carry New Zealand’s name into a global series watched in dozens of markets, and the country has long punched above its weight in high-performance sailing through Team New Zealand and a deep pool of marine talent. Keeping a competitive New Zealand entry on the water protects that profile and the commercial spillovers that come with it, from sponsorship to the marine technology firms that supply the sport. Losing the team would have been a quiet blow to an industry the country is genuinely good at.
You can read the announcement in more detail at RNZ and the NZ Herald.
What do you make of an American private equity firm taking a controlling stake in New Zealand’s SailGP team? Is private money the price of staying competitive in modern sport, or does it change something about who the team really belongs to? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job π
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