Former NFL wide receiver turned announcer Cris Collinsworth is landing a huge payday.
Pro Football Focus, the company owned by Collinsworth, is being sold for a hefty price. According to a report by Arif Hasan in his Wide Left Substack, the company is being sold for between $130 million and $140 million. It's being sold to software and analytics company Teamworks.
"The sale is moving forward after PFF initially opened itself up to private investment several years ago, securing a $50 million investment from private equity firm Silver Lake. Collinsworth purchased a majority stake in PFF back in 2014. Per Hasan, Silver Lake’s investment valued PFF at $160 million, with one source saying the company was valued at $223 million at its peak," Awful Announcing reported.
Collinsworth's company and its player grades have been featured on NBC's "Sunday Night Football" for several years.
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However, not everyone is a fan of them.
Former NFL star J.J. Watt was among those to speak out.
“You can’t watch film on TV copy and create a grade,” CBS NFL analyst J.J. Watt said in an appearance on The Pat McAfee Show last season. “You can’t break down a person’s grade and know what they’re supposed to do if you don’t now their exact assignment. I know defensive line play unbelievably well. I could not go and grade a game for a player and give him a definitive grade without speaking to him, his coach, the scheme, everything. It’s a fact. PFF has a ton of great stuff. Player grading sucks. Stopping putting it out.”
Pro Football Focus's future is unclear right now
Will PFF remain a part of NBC's "Sunday Night Football" broadcasts. Will something change in a major way?
Per Hasan, “It seems as if Teamworks, which does virtually nothing on the content side themselves or with any of their acquired properties, doesn’t have a media plan at the outset. There’s no clear understanding of what may happen to the fantasy/gambling sides of PFF either.”
Hasan continues, “What seems to be clear, however, is that Pro Football Focus management — who seemed to be aware of the imminence of the deal weeks ago — only informed those working for PFF’s business-to-business side. Those working on the content or consumer side weren’t given much information from the company and learned second- or third-hand.”
Pro Football Focus has a lot of data, and a lot of programs, that could be of value to Teamworks.
What remains to be seen is what will happen to the content side of things.