Eli Manning Joins BVG Sports as RCX Deal Expands
Brand Velocity Group acquired RCX Sports and put eli manning and three other former NFL stars into the transaction as it launched BVG Sports. RCX founder and CEO Izell Reese stays in place, giving the new ownership structure a familiar operator while the company’s youth-sports reach shifts under a larger platform.
Reese built RCX after founding it in 2019, and the company says it has grown NFL Flag participation to more than 600,000 youth under his stewardship. RCX also manages official youth league licenses for the NFL, NBA and WNBA, MLS, NHL, and MLB, which makes the business more than a standard marketing buyout.
BVG Sports Adds RCX
The acquisition came from Raine Partners and established RCX as the cornerstone of BVG’s sports sub-vertical, BVG Sports. Brand Velocity Group, founded in 2019 and headquartered in New York, invests in consumer and sports businesses, and the deal brings RCX into a structure built to sit inside that lane rather than outside it.
BVG was joined by Hamilton Lane’s Impact platform, St. Cloud Capital, Darco Capital, and Three Ocean Partners. The athlete group included Eli Manning, Emmitt Smith, Larry Fitzgerald, and Jameis Winston, giving the transaction a recognizable public face while Reese keeps running the company that built the youth-league platform.
Izell Reese Keeps RCX
Reese’s role matters because he is not leaving after the sale. He founded RCX in 2019 and will remain as founder and CEO, so the company’s day-to-day leadership does not change even as ownership does.
Fast Company named RCX a Most Innovative Company in 2026, adding another marker to a business that has grown around community partners across Boys and Girls Clubs, YMCAs, and recreational leagues. Those channels are where the licenses turn into actual programs, so the deal keeps the operator in place while moving the asset into BVG’s sports push.
Raine Group’s Exit
The seller was Raine Partners, tied to Raine Group, which was founded in 2009 by Joseph Ravitch and Jeffrey Sine and has about $3.8 billion in assets under management across advisory and growth equity strategies. That sets the transaction in a private-equity frame, but the practical result is simpler: RCX now sits at the center of BVG Sports, with Reese still steering the business that runs licenses for some of the biggest leagues in North America.
For leagues, community partners, and the youth programs that use RCX’s licenses, the change is ownership and capital structure, not a reset of the company’s front office. The people most tied to the platform — Reese on one side and the athlete partners on the other — are the ones carrying the business into the next phase.
