In a challenging period for AC Milan, owner Gerry Cardinale has expressed confidence in the club’s future. Speaking at the IMG x RedBird summit, Cardinale shared his vision for the Rossoneri: “What I’m trying to do is bring what I’ve learned in 30 years in America to European football. There’s a great opportunity to restore Milan to its former glory.”
As Milan prepares to face Venezia in Serie A, seeking their first win of the season ahead of their Champions League debut against Liverpool, Cardinale addressed several key issues facing the club and the broader sports industry.
On the topic of a new stadium, Cardinale stated, “We have ambitious projects, such as building a cutting-edge new facility to replace the now outdated San Siro that we share with our rivals Inter.” He acknowledged the controversy surrounding this plan, noting that “local politicians wanted the two clubs to invest in existing structures.”
Cardinale also criticized the influx of private equity funds into sports, particularly football. He argued that this interest has led to “massively inflated valuations” based on “simplistic notions” about the sector’s future growth. This trend, he believes, has a “negative impact on the ecosystem” as money is simply parked in the sector without real efforts to improve underlying business performance.
Regarding investors in sports, Cardinale commented, “This is my sector entering sports. The problem with my sector is that they are asset managers. They just want to buy, and that’s not good for intellectual property-based companies.” He added that sports asset owners too often ask investors to pay “control premiums for minority stakes without governance, without information rights, and without exit.”
Cardinale drew parallels to the tech bubble, saying, “It was enough to put an ‘e’ in front of something and everyone wanted it. What do private equity investors bring? They bring liquidity, but there’s a better way to do it. We’ll need to find a soft landing because right now everything is massively inflated.”
In conclusion, Cardinale explained the current demand for sports investments: “The reason there’s this demand for exposure to sports is because of these simplistic notions that sports always grow. It’s not correlated to macro, it’s outperformed the S&P in the last decade. There’s merit to these statements, but now they’re just pushing it and everyone wants to get into the sector.”
