The most powerful brands in American sports — the New York Yankees and the Dallas Cowboys — are getting together to form a stadium hospitality company called Legends Hospitality, CNBC has learned. The business, which will be unveiled to the public later today in New York City, will be equally owned by the Yankees, the Cowboys and Goldman Sachs . An undisclosed part of Goldman's share will be owned by Dallas-based equity investment firm CIC Partners.
The company will be called Legends Hospitality Management and its aim is to operate catering, concessions and retail merchandising, not only for the two new facilities that will be opened by the Yankees and the Cowboys next season, but also for other interested teams.
The company will be headquartered in Newark, N.J., and will be operated by a former Pizza Hut president, a former senior vice president for Centerplate and a New York Yankees senior vice president.
In April, it was reported that Centerplate, which had previously run concessions at Yankee Stadium, had lost the bid for the new Yankee Stadium to Legends Hospitality, though at the time it was unclear what exactly Legends was. Centerplate reportedly pulled in an estimated $70 million in annual revenue from its contract with the Yankees. The company's stock plummeted after news of the Yankee Stadium deal was made public. Centerplate was bought by private equity firm Kohlberg & Co. for about $200 million in September.
Other companies competing with Legends will be Aramark, which is also private, and Levy Restaurants, which is owned by Compass, a hospitality company traded on the London Stock Exchange.
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