What’s Happening?

On Wednesday, Randall Williams of Bloomberg reported that billionaire Marc Lasry of Avenue Sports Fund has invested in Trackhouse. Both parties told Bloomberg the investment was “Sizeable,” but neither disclosed the terms of the investment. Who is Marc Lasry, and what is Avenue Sports Group?

• Trackhouse is one of NASCAR’s most innovative and unique teams from a business perspective. With co-owners Justin Marks and Pitbull, the team has quickly become one of the better teams on the NASCAR grid, and they recently started a Moto GP operation as well.
• Lasry is a billionaire who has previously invested in sports teams through Avenue Sports Group. This is not the first time a group like this has invested in a NASCAR team.
• Trackhouse is one of the most intriguing teams in NASCAR, and fans are very interested in it. They are often left on the edge of their seats, trying to figure out what Trackhouse can do next.

Who Is Marc Lasry?

Marc Lasry was born in 1959 in Morocco but immigrated to the United States at the age of seven. He and his sister, Sonia Gardner, founded Amroc Investments LLC in 1989, a company that Avenue Capital Group’s website describes as “A $100 million distressed debt investment partnership”.

In 1995, the pair co-founded Avenue Capital Group, an investment firm. The two still lead the company today, with Lasry as the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer and Gardner as a Managing Partner.

Avenue Capital Group manages roughly $12.5 billion in assets and has offices worldwide. Forbes reports that Lasry himself has a net worth of $1.9 billion.

In 2014, Lasry partnered with Wes Edens to purchase the Milwaukee Bucks of the National Basketball Association, with Lasry purchasing a 25% stake in the team. In 2023, Lasry sold his stake to Dee and Jimmy Haslam, who also own the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League and the Columbus Crew of Major League Soccer.

Lasry and Edens completely turned the Bucks franchise around. After winning only 15 games in the 2013-14 season, the Bucks made the Playoffs in nine of the next ten seasons, winning six straight division titles from 2019 through 2024. In 2021, the Bucks won the Eastern Conference Championship for the first time since 1974 and the NBA Finals for the first time since 1971.

What Is Avenue Sports Group?

In the fall of 2023, Lasry and Avenue Capital Group announced the creation of the Avenue Sports Fund. At the start of the fund, Avenue partnered with multiple famous athletes, including Stephen Curry, Michael Strahan, and Candace Parker.

These groups are common in the sports landscape and also present in NASCAR. Most notably, the Fenway Sports Group owns a stake in RFK (Roush Fenway Keselowski) Racing alongside Jack Roush and Brad Keselowski. Fenway also owns multiple other sports teams, including the Boson Red Sox of Major League Baseball, Liverpool F.C. of the English Premier League, and the Pittsburgh Penguins of the National Hockey League.

Trackhouse is Avenue Sports Fund’s second official foray into investing in sports. Avenue also invested in a pickleball team, CityPickle, earlier this year.

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