Entertainment Turns To Private Markets”

For years, the media industry has been a dazzling spectacle played out on the grand stage of the public markets. We’ve watched with bated breath as companies like Electronic Arts (EA), purveyor of digital delights like FIFA and The Sims, and Endeavor, the entertainment giant behind UFC and IMG, danced with investors, wooing them with promises of ever-increasing growth and shareholder gains. But lately, the music seems to have stopped. A growing number of entertainment companies are choosing to exit the public arena, opting for the quieter, more secluded world of private ownership.

What’s behind this exodus, and who might be next to pull the velvet rope and disappear behind the scenes?

It should come as no surprise that companies like EA and Endeavor have chosen to duck out of public view, trade their tickers for term sheets, and let private equity and sovereign wealth funds steer their ships behind closed doors. Their exits reveal a simple, if uncomfortable, truth: being public company often means sacrificing long-term strategy for quarterly optics. This dynamic can force management to prioritize short-term gains over long-term strategic vision, a particularly acute problem in the creative industries.

Take Endeavor, the talent, sports and events conglomerate best known as the parent of WME and the UFC. As a company built on talent representation and live events, Endeavor may have found the constant pressure to demonstrate immediate returns stifling. Investing in new creative talent, launching new sports and events, and expanding into new global markets all require significant upfront investments, which can depress short-term profits. As a result, in March 2025, Silver Lake and co-investors completed a take-private deal that paid Endeavor shareholders a cash price and relieved the company of the relentless cadence of public scrutiny. For Endeavor’s leadership, the transaction unlocked the ability to reorganize and invest without the weekly reality checks from public scrutiny of earnings calls and activist shareholders.

Then came Electronic Arts (EA). In the highly competitive world of video games, EA may have felt constrained by the need to consistently deliver blockbuster titles, hindering experimentation with new genres and technologies. Considering these factors, EA recently agreed to be acquired in a record-setting leveraged buyout led by a consortium including Silver Lake and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund — a deal that, at roughly $52–55 billion, may become the largest private-equity-style acquisition in gaming history. The mathematics here are instructive: big franchises, predictable cash flow and global scale make some media assets uniquely attractive to sponsors willing to load on leverage to capture future profits.

So why are entertainment and media companies increasingly choosing the private route?

The motivations are practical and, at times, existential.

Short-Term Markets vs. Long-Term Bets

Public markets reward visible, steady growth. They penalize pivoting strategies, long R&D cycles, or painful restructuring — all common features in media and entertainment where franchises, talent deals and technology investments can take years to pay off. Going private buys time. With fewer reporting obligations and no daily stock price acting as a whip, management can double down on big-picture bets: platform transitions, multi-year content slates, or tech investments such as AI tooling and game engines.

De-Risking Creative Disruption (and the “Earnings Miss” Surprise)

Entertainment businesses are volatile by nature. A single box-office miss or unpopular game launch can trigger a stock rout or activist pressure. Private owners — especially deep-pocketed private equity firms or sovereign wealth funds — can absorb that volatility while steering strategy without the optics of an earnings miss. For companies wrestling with costly transformations (such as streaming profitability or next-gen game development), private ownership offers a quieter operating theater to rework economics.

The Siren Song of Private Equity: A Bag Full of Cash

Of course, the allure of private ownership isn’t just about escaping public market pressures. It’s also about the money. Private equity firms are sitting on mountains of dry powder, eager to deploy capital in promising sectors. Entertainment and media companies, with their valuable intellectual property, established brands, and loyal customer bases, are often highly attractive targets.

These private equity firms offer compelling deals, providing existing shareholders with a premium over the current stock price and giving management teams the financial resources to execute their long-term strategies. In Endeavor’s case, Silver Lake, a private equity firm that already held a significant stake in the company, took the plunge to acquire the remaining shares. Silver Lake took a similar interest in EA, and the promise of greater financial flexibility, coupled with the expertise and connections of a savvy private equity partner, can be a powerful incentive to leave the public markets.

Private buyers often see opportunity where public investors see risk. They can apply leverage, consolidate overlapping assets, or reconfigure cost structures across studios, ad stacks, or distribution channels. That calculus can be risky — critics warn that heavy debt loads and aggressive cost cutting can sap creative capacity — but it’s part of the logic that turns mature, cash-generating entertainment assets into buyout targets.

Dealmakers are being increasingly creative with capital sources. Sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and growth-oriented private equity firms are competing with public investors, changing the investor mix. That new capital can bring geopolitical considerations (in the case of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund) — and regulatory attention — but it also brings patience and, sometimes, near-unlimited checkbooks for the right intellectual property (IP) portfolios. The EA deal, for instance, featured a complex syndicate that reflects this new reality: private capital that sees gaming’s recurring revenue models as ripe for long-term extraction.

Risks and the Cultural Tradeoffs

Going private is not a cure-all. Private ownership often brings aggressive cost cutting and a focus on returns that can clash with the creative cultures prevalent in entertainment. Debt-financed deals increase financial fragility if markets or consumer behavior sour. There’s also a more existential question: what happens when formerly public media companies, such as news organizations and major studios, leave the public markets and the accountability inherent in having a broad class of (public company) investors behind for private ownership outside of public view and scrutiny? Some say accountability dwindles and decision-making oversight becomes obscured. Critics from labor and policy quarters have already raised alarms about what certain buyouts could mean for jobs and creative autonomy; not the mention the impact the AI will have on the creative industries in general, and media landscape in particular. Specifically, incorporating AI into all aspects of the media ecosystem (from development to production to distribution) is sure to result in cost savings and efficiencies which will prove to be highly attractive to private equity buyers.

Who’s Next? Which Public Traded Entertainment and Media Companies May Follow Suit?

(Spoiler: think steady cash flow + public pain)

Predicting take-private transactions is a hedge-laden sport, but some logical candidates emerge when you look for sizable, cash-generating media companies facing public-market headaches.

Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD). WBD has recently been rumored as a takeover target by David Ellison’s Paramount, while other media players such as Netflix have denied having interest. Ultimately, private equity may play a key role in determining WBD’s fate, whether as a partner in an approach by strategic acquiror, such as Paramount, or as the primary financing source in connection with a go-private transaction similar to the EA and Endeavor. With valuable content and expensive streaming transitions, WBD may be attractive consolidation target for buyers looking to rationalize distribution economics.

Lionsgate. Best known for the Hunger Games franchise and television hits like Mad Men, Lionsgate has been the subject of takeover rumors for years. While it possesses a valuable content library and a recognizable brand, Lionsgate has struggled in recent years to consistently deliver blockbuster hits, making it a potential target for a private equity firm looking to unlock its hidden value.

AMC Networks. While in a different position than the others listed here, AMC’s stock price is depressed, despite some quality television series. A buyout offer could make sense for the company that is in an uncertain position in a rapidly evolving media landscape.

The Future of Media: A Private Affair?

The trend of media companies going private raises important questions about the future of the industry. Will more companies choose to abandon the public markets in search of greater flexibility and financial freedom? Will this lead to a wave of consolidation, as private equity firms acquire and merge media assets? And what will it mean for investors, who may miss out on the potential upside of these companies’ future growth?

One thing is certain: the media landscape is constantly evolving. As technology disrupts traditional business models and consumer preferences shift, media companies must adapt to survive. For some, that may mean embracing the freedom and flexibility of private ownership. For others, it may mean finding new ways to thrive in the public arena. Only time will tell which strategy will ultimately prevail.

The EA and Endeavor exits are symptom and signal. They show that for mature, IP-rich media companies, private ownership can be a more forgiving environment to make big structural bets — or to strip costs and accelerate returns. But every exit reshapes the battlefield: consolidation becomes likelier, strategic patience grows scarce in public markets, and the balance of power shifts toward fewer, deeper pockets. For creators, employees and audiences, that can mean more resources for blockbuster ideas — or less transparency and fewer guardrails. Either way, the curtain has closed on the notion that being public is always better. In today’s media economy, the question isn’t whether companies will go private — it’s which ones will be left standing when the lights come back on.