Service Provider to Global Architect: How One London Agency Became a $200M Golf Industry Powerhouse
Just a decade after its founding, London-based sports media and marketing agency 54 is now a key player in the remoulding of the global golf landscape.
UK-based sports and entertainment agency 54 has been shortlisted for Agency of the Year at the prestigious FEVO Sport Industry Awards, marking another milestone in a phenomenal decade-long journey from startup to industry titan.
What began in 2015 as a boutique golf PR agency founded by Jed Moore, Matt Selby and Gary Davidson has rapidly transformed into an international powerhouse with revenues exceeding GBP £155 million for the past two years running — by current exchange rates, breaking the $200 million annual turnover barrier — and operations now spanning multiple continents.
The FEVO shortlisting places the firm among elite company in the UK sports industry, where on awards night it will challenge two-time winners and 2024 Agency of the Year, the Manchester-based Ear to the Ground, and powerhouse M&C Saatchi Sport and Entertainment, who won the award in 2023.
In addition, earlier this month the company was listed at position 155 on the Financial Times’s list of Europe’s top 1000 fastest-growing companies, with a compound annual growth rate of 126%
A Decade of Strategic Evolution
54's growth trajectory illustrates a methodical approach to building influence within the golf industry.
The agency — which started out as Performance54 before a rebrand in 2024 — built an early client roster that included prestigious names like Titleist, FootJoy, Troon Golf, FlightScope, Faldo Enterprises, Spain's Infinitum Golf Resort, and Ireland's Adare Manor, all establishing its golf industry bona fides and creating inroads to the game’s global power centers.
In their FEVO Sport Industry Awards company profile, 54 highlighted 2024 as a year of "significant growth" and global expansion. This growth is supported by their financial statements, which show their team now exceeding 200 members and revenues surpassing $200 million.
The company's published annual accounts for the year ending April 2024 — publicly available via the UK’s Companies House — outline their strategic expansion into new geographical markets, noting the formation of "Performance54 Europe SL" to "stage events and actively pursue further opportunities arising in Southern Europe." Their 2024 financial statements also mention "headcount in the UK and overseas" being added "to further build experienced teams in event staging, management and marketing across the World," reflecting their international growth strategy across markets including Spain, Vietnam, and Saudi Arabia.
The company also completed a corporate rebrand in 2024, shortening its name from Performance54 to simply 54 — a streamlined identity that aligns with their tight and contemporary approach to sports marketing.
The Saudi Connection
The pivotal moment in 54's growth trajectory likely came in 2021, when the company underwent a significant ownership restructuring.
Sanabil Investments — a Saudi Arabian investment firm and the country’s venture capital arm, which deploys up to $2 billion annually — acquired a controlling stake in the newly-formed Performance54 Group Limited.
This financial firepower facilitated rapid expansion and the ability to take on increasingly ambitious projects, and saw a significant Saudi arrival in the boardroom.
The latest financial report listed three Saudi Arabians — Abdullah Abduljabbar, Abdulaziz Aleyoni and Nesreen Alzamil — as directors alongside the three British founders, Moore, Selby and Davidson.
Abduljabbar is also the Sanabil CEO, where Aleyoni is Head of Deal Execution. Documents filed with Companies House just this week show that Nesreen Alzamil, Sanabil's Head of Internal Audit, resigned as a director of Performance54 Group Limited and was replaced by Feras Bahashwan, Sanabil’s Chief Financial Officer.
The links don’t stop there.
Perhaps most significantly, Sanabil's board chairman is Yasir Al-Rumayyan, who is also the governor of the Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) that bankrolls LIV Golf and also chairman of Saudi Aramco, the world's most valuable company.
Financial Performance and Future Outlook
Despite their rapid growth, recent financial statements suggest 54 faces the balancing act common to many expanding enterprises.
For the year ended April 2024, the company posted revenue of £156.6 million, impressive figures that remained relatively consistent with the £157.2 million reported in 2023. The financial report stated at that its turnover “arises principally from services fees relating to marketing, advertising, strategic consulting, event management fees and sponsorship commissions”.
Gross profit was also almost unchanged, increasing from £26.2 million in 2023 to just over £27 million in 2024. Net profit for the financial year declined from £6.45 million to £4.33 million, but the company’s cash flows statement showed a healthy increase in cash and cash equivalents from £20.4 million in 2023 to almost £38 million a year later.
The financial reports also identified key business risks, including concentration of revenues among a small number of large fee-paying clients, leading to the stated strategic objective to “seek new clients both across the wider sports ecosystem to mitigate the company's concentration on the golf industry.”
The executive summary to the financial statements pointed to the niche focus on the golf industry and the effectiveness of that strategy, but lifted the lid on a broader future diversification strategy:
“The Company has more recently leveraged it’s global presence and marketing expertise to deliver for clients outside of golf and this is seen as a key growth area for the business in the future.”
Notably, in the company's presumably self-written profile for the FEVO awards shortlist, the word “golf” was not mentioned.
LIV Golf and 54: More Than Agency Partners?
One of the most intriguing aspects of 54's business story involves their relationship with LIV Golf. The agency manages LIV Golf events, as noted in their company financial reports, describing them as "well received" with expectations to “renew event management contracts for an equivalent number in future years.”
However, when examined alongside the timeline of events, this relationship raises some fascinating questions about 54's potential role in LIV's creation.
Then known as Performance54, the agency began working with the Saudi Golf Federation in 2018. UK Companies House documents show that by June 2021, a company called "PERFORMANCE54I (UK) LTD" was incorporated, only to be renamed "LIV GOLF LTD" just four months later.
On top of that, even the name LIV itself offers another thread to pull on.
Part of the launch communications of LIV’s breakaway 54-hole no-cut format in 2022 pointed to “LIV” as a stylized representation of the Roman numeral 54.
This was just one of the new tour’s breaks with golf’s traditions, but the echoes between the brand names LIV and 54 suggests that the relationship between the two organizations — LIV Golf and the 54 agency, each with strong Saudi influences — seems unlikely to be based merely on standard client services.
While LIV’s former CEO Greg Norman was long positioned as the public face and driving force behind the organization, all these underlying threads suggest that 54, the agency, may have played a central role in the league's conceptualization and execution.
While no documents exist showing the actual ownership structure of LIV, previous media comments suggested the Saudi PIF owns “more than 90% of the organization”, meaning there must be a chance that 54, or other corporate holdings behind the agency, is much more than just an agency or media partner for the disruptor golf tour.
What This Might Mean for the Global Business Ecosystem
54's meteoric rise might offer several insights into the challenges and opportunities facing any organization that wants to make a lasting impression on the global golf industry.
Saudi Arabia's place in golf industry influence cannot be denied. The Kingdom's Vision 2030 strategy has created multiple channels for golf industry investment — of which LIV Golf is only the highest profile — and agencies such as 54 now serve as critical connectors, facilitators, partners and suppliers. This marks a continued geopolitical / macroeconomic shift from the 50-year unchallenged dominance of the United States, and the fact that the PIF and the PGA Tour entered into an as-yet-unconsummated strategic alliance in 2023 only underlines the growing Saudi role in global golf.
Strategic partnerships remain paramount. 54's trajectory accelerated dramatically after the Saudi investment and corporate restructuring, demonstrating how strategic capital and private equity partnerships now, perhaps more than ever before, play such a critical role in the growth potential of any globally ambitious company.
Integration of services creates competitive advantage. By combining what the company describes as “upstream advisory” (consultancy, data and insights) with “downstream execution” (events, marketing), 54 has managed to create a compelling end-to-end and 360-degree solution that might go a long way towards differentiating them from the typical agency and advisory model.
Besides Money and Influence, Creative Excellence Still Plays a Major Role
Whatever you might think of the organizational chart, there’s no doubt that 54 have assembled some of the most talented creatives at work in sports media and marketing, anywhere in the world.
As part of their rebrand from Performance54 last summer, the business revealed its new brand film, a 1-minute tour de force that achieved the perfect trifecta of combining (a) the most exquisite of film and editing, (b) the tightest of copywriting and (c) a message that lets prospects know for certain that, if they’re a truly ambitious sports organization and they want to make manifest their vision of the future, they’ve come to the right place.
Whether 54 takes home the Agency of the Year award at the FEVO ceremony on May 15 remains to be seen.
What's already become clear, though, is that their business model — combining industry expertise, strategic investment partnerships, integrated service offerings, top-class creative and real world brand activation — is well on the way to creating a new template for success in the business of sports globally.
For golf industry executives, entrepreneurs, and investors, the 54 story underscores the new realities in the global business landscape, where lines between agencies, investors, and rights holders continue to blur in fascinating ways.
For agencies, it really is a matter of levelling up beyond just creative services. Those services must be top class, of course, but back them up with strategic corporate partnerships — and the deepest of pockets — and the sky really is the limit.
Thanks for reading.
Shane