Two Circles Acquires Trm Partners
Two Circles has announced the acquisition of independent sports rights-sales business, TRM Partners.
TRM, founded in 2014 by former Manchester United Commercial Executives Harry Horsley and Leo Thompson as a premium white-label sales resource, has been responsible for $700m in deals for sports rights-owners including the NFL, UEFA, ICC, Chelsea FC and AC Milan.
It has also been responsible for sponsorship deals including Yokohama’s five-year partnership with Chelsea, and Visa and Pepsi’s partnerships with UEFA women’s football competitions.
Since Covid-19 hit this spring, TRM has also secured six deals worth a combined $50m – including Vodafone’s three-year title sponsorship of Test cricket in Australia – and renewed long-term agreements with UEFA, AC Milan and the Mercedes-Benz EQ Formula E team.
The deal will also see Two Circles – the winners of the Agency of the Year category at the Sport Industry Awards 2020 – acquire a majority stake in RugbyX, the World Rugby-approved 5v5 format founded by TRM.
Two Circles – taken over themselves by Bruin Sports Capital in 2019 – will integrate TRM within its wider business through the creation of a Rights Management function that will build on TRM’s core commercial sales offering with the addition of ‘data-driven, digitally-led sponsorship rights propositions’ which will drive incremental revenue for sports rights-owners around the world.
Harry Horsley and Leo Thompson will serve as Co-Presidents of the Two Circles Rights Management vertical.
“TRM has created a pioneering rights-sales capability, successfully marketing the unique emotion of sport to drive commercial results for rights-owners and record impact for brands,” said Gareth Balch, CEO of Two Circles.
“By adding in data-driven, digitally-led rights propositions, we will take sponsorship into a new era. We’ve known for years that sports sponsorship is on the cusp of being rewired. Now we will rewire it.”
Harry Horsley and Leo Thompson added: “By combining our proven sales approach with Two Circles’ delivery of targeted and measurable digital audiences at scale, we’re going to demonstrate – in a more compelling, data-driven way than ever – why sports sponsorship is the most effective marketing channel for brands. Our new marketing proposition will deliver greater impact for brands, and significant incremental revenue for the sports industry.”
Commenting on the deal, George Pyne, Founder and CEO of Bruin Sports Capital, said: “The growth of the sports marketing industry will be directly correlated to a marketer’s ability to definitively quantify the value of an investment across an ever-growing set of platforms. Two Circles has just put itself at the forefront of all of this by creating an end-to-end, data-driven resource for sponsors and properties to create value and transparency for marketing programs that few can match.”
