Wealthspire launches a $2.9 billion sports practice and plans an NIL program

Wealthspire has launched a sports and entertainment practice holding about $2.9 billion in assets across more than 200 client relationships and staffed by roughly 20 advisors who already serve athletes and entertainers. Frank Marzano runs Wealthspire Sports & Entertainment as managing director and head of the unit, a title he holds alongside co-heading Wealthspire Family Office, and WSE sits inside that family office structure rather than beside it.

Marzano joined Wealthspire in 2023 after selling his GM Advisory Group to the firm, which suggests the practice launches over a book the platform already owned. The scale explains why it is worth naming: 20 advisors carrying $2.9 billion works out to roughly $145 million each, and more than 200 client relationships to an average near $14.5 million. His case for keeping the work inside the family office is that the service list is the one the firm's richest families already get—tax and estate planning and trust work, bill pay with or without power of attorney, contract and real estate management, charitable giving and help with the transition out of a playing career. The advisors he wants are the ones who understand variable income that in many cases is not guaranteed, which makes this a cash-flow discipline as much as an allocation one.

By Marzano's own account the NIL program is earlier stage: most of the business today is professional athletes, and the firm is developing guidance for high school and college athletes on name, image and likeness, with someone to be brought in to run it. The Protect College Sports Act, a bipartisan bill President Trump has prioritized, recently passed the U.S. Senate and aims to add regulation on athlete compensation, transfer limits and college eligibility. What a thicker rulebook does to advisory demand is an open question, and no headcount or revenue target has been put on the program.

Ground Control Business Management, a Wealthspire division, announced in June that it acquired Arena Wealth, a UK firm focused on professional golfers. Madison Dearborn, the Chicago private equity firm, agreed to reacquire Wealthspire last year, and Wealthspire's website puts the platform at more than $660 billion in assets managed or advised.

For acquirers, the instructive detail is who runs the new unit: Marzano sold his firm in 2023 and now leads a vertical inside the buyer, the post-close operator profile that commands the premium in wealth management M&A ahead of AUM alone. The markers ahead are the NIL hire he says is coming and what the Senate bill becomes.