The Ball is in Wes Edens’ Court

It’s probably not too surprising that someone as successful in the highly competitive world of high finance as Wes Edens would transfer that drive to professional sports. First in his native United States as part owner of the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks — and more recently with his co-purchase of Aston Villa, a member of the English Football League Championship and based in Birmingham — Edens is building a high-profile presence on the world stage of sports. This extends to the cutting-edge arena of eSports with his ownership stake in FlyQuest, part of the North American League of Legends Championship Series.

Before his financial career took off, Wes Edens was a competitive ski racer growing up and played baseball for Oregon State University, so his interest in sports is not purely theoretical. Edens was also the force behind the development of the $100 million Caldera House luxury hotel in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, which opened in 2018 to serve the ski industry in one of the world’s premier destinations.

Wes Edens’ professional background includes stints at Lehman Brothers and BlackRock before becoming one of the three co-founders of Fortress Investment Group, along with Randal Nardone and Rob Kauffman. Founded as a dedicated private equity firm, Fortress quickly grew into a diversified global alternative asset manager and the first such company to go public in 2007. Edens is still one of the principals at Fortress, in addition to Nardone and Pete Briger, after its $3.3 billion purchase in 2017 by Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp. Edens specializes in identifying the potential to create enormous value where few others see it—either buying and transforming established companies to capitalize on changing markets or creating new companies from scratch.  It’s a high stakes and tricky field — much like managing a professional sports organization.

The Milwaukee Bucks

The 2014 purchase of the Bucks by Wes Edens and Marc Lasry began a turn in fortunes for the franchise. Mired in the middle — in good years — of the NBA pack for decades, at the approach of the 2018–2019 midseason the Bucks have the best record in the league and are a leading contender to win an NBA championship.

Not since their glory days 50 years ago — sparked by the drafting of Lew Alcindor in 1969 — have the Bucks shown such promise. Alcindor led them to their only NBA championship in 1971. But that was a long time ago — before Alcindor became Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers, and continued a long career that left him being widely considered one of the greatest players of all time — before his encore as a widely respected writer and social commentator (not to mention his star turn as co-pilot Roger Murdock in Airplane!).

Today, the Bucks are led by Giannis Antetokounmpo, the “Greek Freak.” The personification of the modern global economy —raised in Greece by Nigerian immigrants before relocating to the United States — in 2016–2017 Antetokounmpo not only led the Bucks in every major statistical category but was the first NBA player ever to place in the top 20 in points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks.

He’s currently a leading contender for league MVP (which Abdul-Jabbar won twice during his career on the Bucks). He was drafted fifteenth overall in the 2013 NBA draft. Although he didn’t turn around the Bucks fortunes quite as quickly as did Alcindor — who was picked first overall after a glorious career at UCLA under legendary coach John Wooden — in just about a decade Antetokounmpo has gone from a street-vendor in Athens without citizenship documentation to being one of the top five basketball players in the world.

The purchase of the Bucks soon after Antetokounmpo’s arrival was another turning point for he Bucks. Milwaukee is one of the smallest markets hosting a team in the NBA and has a long history of struggling to keep the team in the area. An ownership team led by Wisconsin Senator Herb Kohl bought the team in the mid-1980s, but financial issues and challenges dogged the franchise.

Wes Edens and Lasry pledged to keep the team in Milwaukee as part of the purchase agreement and immediately went to work developing a new arena for the team (which opened as the Fiserv Forum in 2018). Since the purchase, Edens has served as the primary voice for the ownership group (which also includes Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers).

“My priority has always been and will continue to be keeping the Bucks in Milwaukee,” said Kohl when he revealed the sale. “This announcement reinforces that Milwaukee is and will continue to be the home of the Bucks. Wes and Marc agree, and they share my commitment to the long-term success of this franchise in Milwaukee.”

The purchase price was $550 million and included additional funding for what would become the Fiserv Forum. Wes Edens has played a leading role in not just the development of the new arena but the real estate around it. Less than five years after purchase, the current value of the Bucks is estimated at $1 billion.

“Our leadership of the Milwaukee Bucks will not be limited to the basketball court. We are eager to become active contributors to the greater-Milwaukee community, and plan to establish a presence in the city. Furthermore, we are committed to spending a significant amount of personal resources, including a contribution of at least $100 million, to work alongside the community and Senator Kohl to develop a new state-of-the-art sports venue in Milwaukee,” Edens and Lasry stated upon their purchase of the Bucks. “We want to provide fans with the best sports experience imaginable, and we believe a new arena and the development of the surrounding downtown area will immensely benefit the game-day atmosphere as well as the city of Milwaukee.”

Lasry is the co-founder of Avenue Capital Group, like Fortress Investment Group a hedge fund management firm. Like Antetokounmpo, he has an immigrant background, having moved to the United States from Morocco when he was seven. He has an impressive background in the investment sector and is known to be a major donor to the Democratic Party (perhaps one reason why the Bucks are one of three NBA teams that refuse to stay at hotels linked to Donald Trump).

Lasry and Edens have thrown themselves into the Bucks and the redevelopment schemes surrounding the new arena. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has publicly committed to bringing an NBA All-Star game — one of the league’s premier events — to Milwaukee within the next few years (games are already scheduled for other cities through 2021). It’s been over 40 years since Milwaukee last hosted the event. Bids for holding NCAA tournaments and a Democratic National Convention are also in the works.

The new arena has become the anchor around which major redevelopment in the city center has taken place. The area in northwest Milwaukee had fallen into disrepair after the Park West Freeway project failed. But plans are moving forward rapidly to build out from the arena a number of residential, hotel, office, and retail projects — including a brewery, a nod to Milwaukee’s historic role in the U.S. beer industry — that will transform the urban zone.

Overall, what’s happening around the Bucks new home coincides with what the Edens-led ownership team has brought to the team internally. The Bucks were quickly rebranded, including a complete rebuild of their visuals — new logos, new uniforms — and they’ve moved into the top 10 of NBA merchandise sales (much of that no doubt due to the international appeal of Antetokounmpo).

Wes Edens is often courtside for games and was very hands-on during the arena construction, which he helped design and manage the financing for. He even offers his financial acumen gratis to the young men who fill the roster of the Bucks.

“I tell them I’m the free guy,” Edens told a local TV station in an interview. “If they have questions about finances or [are] looking at investing in something, I’d like to be there to help in any way I can.”

Aston Villa

Like the Bucks, the Aston Villa Football Club had seen better days. Their fan base is certainly hopeful that Wes Edens and his partner, Egyptian billionaire Nassef Sawiris, can bring the same kind of revitalization to Birmingham that he has to Milwaukee.

It’s doubtful that moving out of Villa Park, where the team has played since 1897 and which has hosted 55 FA Cup semifinal games — more than any other pitch— might be in the cards for Aston Villa. At least not after Edens visited.

“I hadn’t been to the stadium before we bought it,” Wes Edens told a forum at the SportsBusiness Journal Dealmakers in Sports conference in New York recently. “It’s like you bought a club and discovered you owned Fenway Park. It was built in 1897, it’s an incredible facility, really an amazing place.”

That’s not to say that Edens’ experience with development around sports complexes — and rebranding a team’s look — won’t come in handy. It’s a widely held opinion that Aston Villa FC could use some modernizing.

Currently competing in Britain’s second league, the Championship, the immediate goal is to return the team to the Premier League, which Villa was a founding member of 1992. It came in second behind Manchester United that year. Since then the team’s fortunes have not been consistent. They did win two League Cups — 1994 and 1996 — but after years of ownership and managerial drama they fell out of the Premier League in 2016.

This was the culmination of a decade of spectacle at the club. The bitter departure of manager David O’Leary in 2006 was followed by long-time chairman and largest shareholder Doug Ellis deciding to sell his stake in the club. Eventually, the then owner of the NFL’s Cleveland Browns Randy Lerner purchased it. But in 2012 it was announced the team had lost £53.9 million and was soon put up for sale. It lingered on the market until Chinese businessman Tony Xia purchased it for £76 million in 2016. During this time the turnover rate of its managers was pronounced, which undoubtedly played a large role in its relegation.

The purchase by Edens and Sawiris is premised on a substantial injection of capital returning the team to the Premier League.

“We believe that together we bring business and sports experience that will help strengthen the club to ensure Aston Villa can return to its rightful place in the upper echelons of English football,” said the new co-owners in a statement upon their purchase. “Our goal is to bring sustainable success to the club, building on its rich history while respecting its loyal fan base and unique culture. We understand that we are stewards of Aston Villa on behalf of the fans and we take that responsibility seriously.”

Xia continues to hold a stake and became co-chairman and continues as a member of the Board of Directors — making for a very international leadership triumvirate.

“I am extremely pleased to have formed a strategic partnership with Nassef and Wes,” Xia told The Guardian. “We have a common goal of delivering future success for Aston Villa and I look forward to working together to achieve this aim.”

Originally from Egypt, Sawiris resides in London and New York and is a graduate — and now a member of the Board of Trustees — of the University of Chicago. His early background was in construction as CEO of Orascom Construction Industries and in finance as a board member of the Alexandria Stock Exchange, the Cairo Stock Exchange, and Dubai International Financial Exchange. His investment company, NNS Holding Sàrl, holds a stake in Adidas AG, the world’s second largest sportswear brand after Nike.

FlyQuest

Wes Edens has also been a supporter of the fast-growing eSports field. Major tournaments have become common over the last decade, including live broadcasts and serious prize money. The global eSports market generated approximately $500 million in revenue in 2016.

In fact, a major development in New York’s Times Square that Fortress is a major backer of — the TSX Broadway project — is expected to be, among other things, a venue hosting eSports events.

The FlyQuest team that Edens owns competes in the North America League of Legends Championship Series (NA LCS). Edens purchased the team from Cloud9  for $2.5 million in December of 2016.

“We are very excited to enter such a rapidly growing and immensely popular sport,” Edens said in a statement at the time. “FlyQuest intends to compete and win at the highest levels of eSports and quickly become an internationally respected organization.”

According to ESPN, Wes Edens is not the only NBA-related person to invest in the eSports market. Other owners, including Stephen Kaplan of the Memphis Grizzlies and Peter Guber of the Golden State Warriors, have financial stakes in the NA LCS.

Edens’ various adventures in the sports world are both a new frontier and a familiar place for him.

“It’s just like any other business,” Edens said at the Dealmakers in Sports conference. “If you hire A-plus people and you hold them accountable and give them responsibility, you have a good chance of things working out. We’ve learned a lot in the last four years and I’m very happy with where the organization [the Bucks] is today, both on the court and off the court. And that has a lot to do with the decisions we made about the people.”

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