UFC owner Endeavor has agreed to sell its world-renowned IMG Academy to Hong Kong-based private equity group BPEA EQT on Tuesday in an all-cash deal valued at $1.25 billion.

The news comes three weeks after UFC said it would merge with WWE to unite the biggest names in entertainment and wrestling. The two entities “have signed a definitive agreement” to create a new publicly traded company valued at $21 billion.

IMG Academy’s campus in Bradenton, Florida, is known as a college preparatory school catering to top youth athletes nationwide. The school is now set to partner with BPEA EQT’s portfolio company Nord Anglia Education, which runs more than 80 private schools across the U.S., Central America, South America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.

The combined private education system will serve more than 175,000 students. IMG Academy placed more than 30,000 students on college sports rosters in 2022.

The IMG Academy famously produced tennis stars such as Andre Agassi, Venus and Serena Williams, and Pete Sampras. Their coach Nick Bollettieri, who founded the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy in 1978 before IMG bought it in 1987 to form IMG Academy, died in December 2022 at the age of 91. 

Endeavor originally acquired sports and entertainment giant IMG for $2.4 billion in 2014.

The Baltimore Orioles suffered another setback in a dispute with the Washington Nationals that goes back more than a decade. 

The New York Court of Appeals issued an opinion Tuesday confirming an MLB committee’s ruling that the Orioles and the franchise’s majority-owned regional sports network owe the Nationals more than $100 million in rights fees.

“While it is unfortunate that our decision may send this protracted litigation into extra innings, that result is necessitated by the settlement agreement’s terms,” Judge Madeline Singas wrote in the 6-0 majority opinion. 

The ruling didn’t call on the Orioles or Mid-Atlantic Sports Network to pay up immediately, but rather to continue negotiations under the terms laid out in the settlement agreement created in 2005 — the first season the Montreal Expos were rebranded to the Nationals and began play in Washington, D.C. 

At the center of the dispute, first challenged by the Nats in 2012, is the amount due for their broadcast rights. 

The MLB panel ruled that rights fees from 2012-2016 were worth $105 million more than the Orioles and MASN argued was the fair market value to broadcast Nats games on the RSN. 

Impact on Nats Sale 

Ted Leonsis, who already owns the Capitals, Wizards, and Mystics, leads a group bidding $2 billion for the Nats, though that process is put on hold as this litigation plays out. 

Last August, Leonsis took full ownership of the area’s other RSN, NBC Sports Net Washington. He will want the Nats on the network, which will be rebranded as Monumental.

With their roster depleted by trades and minimal free-agent signings, the Oakland A’s are sometimes likened to a Triple-A team — and may soon be downsized to playing in a minor league stadium.

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said that the team could share Las Vegas Ballpark — capacity 10,000 — with their Triple-A affiliate, the Las Vegas Aviators, while they wait for a new stadium to be built in Las Vegas.

The team’s current lease at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum ends after the 2024 season. A’s president Dave Kaval has said that a new stadium in Las Vegas likely wouldn’t be open until 2027, leaving a two-year gap where the A’s might need a place to play. 

Negotiations in Oakland were made more challenging by A’s owner John Fisher’s desire to build housing, retail, and restaurants simultaneously — not sequentially — alongside a new stadium to help the development pay for itself, per The Athletic.

It doesn’t seem the two sides ever discussed a scaled-back version of the $12 billion development. 

In addition to potentially needing a new tenant, the Oakland A’s home park will also need a new name. 

RingCentral, which has held naming rights to the coliseum since 2019 in a deal worth $1 million annually, ended its pact early on April 1. 

The Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Authority is looking into whether the company had the right to end the deal, which had nine months remaining. The termination could cost the managing organization $750,000 through the end of the year.