PE-owned Blue Star Sports enters Australia, New Zealand
Blue Star Sports, a US-based company controlled by Genstar Capital that provides management software to grassroots sports clubs, has entered the Australia and New Zealand market with the acquisition of SportsTG.
Founded by Glen McGoldrick in 2001 as IMG Sports Technology, SportsTG took on its current name following a merger with Fox Sports Pulse two years ago. It operates a technology platform that helps sports clubs in areas ranging from event management to membership fee collection. Past projects include building an e-commerce platform for the Brisbane Broncos rugby league franchise and helping the Australian rules football league with online-based community engagement.
The company expanded from Australia into New Zealand and then the UK, and now serves more than six million sports enthusiasts across 60,000 clubs, publishing 115,000 match results each month. It also has partnerships with 26 national sports governing bodies.
Blue Star was established in 2015 with a similar remit. The company received backing from Jerry Jones, owner, president and general manager of the Dallas Cowboys American football franchise, and Providence Equity Partners’ growth equity arm. In April, San Francisco-based Genstar Capital acquired a majority stake in the company. Jones and Providence remain involved as minority investors.
Blue Star’s M&A spree predates the Genstar investment, with acquisitions of sports marketing and event management assets, sports video analysis and statistics specialists, and a variety of software providers with competence in areas such as cloud-based registration, online recruitment, and website construction. The business now has more than 40 million users in 32 countries.
"Since founding Blue Star Sports, we've been focused on building the best collection of sports technology companies in the youth sports ecosystem. SportsTG fits perfectly with that vision and provides significant global expansion opportunities," said Rob Wechsler, founder and CEO of Blue Star, in a statement. "We are excited to welcome industry veteran Glen McGoldrick and the SportsTG team to the Blue Star Sports family of companies."
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