NBA Legend Carmelo Anthony, WWE Execs Launch $750M Private Equity Fund for Sports

Former NBA player Carmelo Anthony has created a $750 million private equity fund, Isos7 Growth Equity, with Isos Capital co-founders and former WWE co-presidents George Barrios and Michelle Wilson, according to Brendan Coffey and Scott Soshnick of Variety.

The goal in starting the fund is to move toward "equity ownership of premier, major league teams," per that report. The goal is to invest $50 million to $100 million in "businesses, teams, leagues, sports betting and adjacent companies that are profitable or have a short-term path to profitability," Wilson said.

"There are a lot of similarities in how we think, how we operate and what we want to accomplish," Anthony added of his partnership with Barrios and Wilson.

Anthony also said that negotiating with NBA legend Michael Jordan, who had transitioned to the ownership side of the table, during the 2011 lockout helped inspire the decision.

"Seeing the landscape of the sport industry on the inside, hearing that information as a player, sitting across from the owners and being able to operate in the CBA deal and the media rights deals... a lot of us [players] didn't understand, as athletes, how to approach that," he noted.