CBT News: Dave Cantin Group pairs athletes and dealers for a winning team

The Athlete Investment Services: Why are athletes buying dealerships?

Dave Cantin, CEO, and Brian Gordon, President of the Dave Cantin Group, joined host Jim Fitzpatrick on CBT News Inside M&A to discuss the launch of DCG Athlete Investment Services. This new advisory practice structures business partnerships by connecting retail automotive dealership groups with professional athletes seeking equity ownership positions.

Professional athletes are increasingly looking past endorsement deals and building real ownership positions in businesses, including car dealerships. The Dave Cantin Group (DCG) has responded by launching DCG Athlete Investment Services. These structured equity partnerships address shifting consumer behavior, as brand loyalty in the retail automotive market weakens, shoppers are prioritizing price and convenience over familiar names.

By embedding an athlete’s regional presence into a dealership’s corporate structure, retail groups secure a way to build the kind of local differentiation that is increasingly hard to create through advertising alone, directly impacting long-term business valuation, staff retention, and community market share.

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This is more than just marketing

“Sports is the single most engaging thing that Americans are passionate about, period. When you look at where people spend all of their time, where they’re spending their money, what they’re watching on television, it’s sports.” – Brian Gordon

Gordon applies this consumer engagement data to formal corporate structures, moving past historical, unstructured pairings. Cantin cited his prior partnership with Super Bowl champion and automotive retailer Brad Benson as the operational blueprint for pairing an athlete’s competitive instinct with a dealer’s grit to create a culture inside a store that customers, staff and the community can feel the moment they walk in.

To scale this model, DCG has signed tennis player Ethan Quinn and PGA golfer Quade Cummins as ambassadors, leveraging Cummins, whose family owns Cummins Auto Group in Oklahoma, and his background growing up in the dealership business to ensure immediate operational alignment.

Community connection drives success

“The most successful partnerships are built around shared values, community alignment and a clear understanding of how the athlete can meaningfully contribute holistically to the entire local or regional dealership business,” – Brian Gordon

This holistic contribution relies on precise geographic execution rather than national stardom. For example, former NBA player Jamal Mashburn achieved retail success because Mashburn’s dealerships are in Kentucky, where he played college basketball, not in the NBA markets where he played professionally. That community tie, Gordon said, is what drove the success. This localized community tie directly drives dealership performance metrics.

The DCG structure

“Car dealers really didn’t know how to partner with an athlete. The athlete didn’t know how to partner with the car dealer. But when they do, wow.” – Dave Cantin

DCG Athlete Investment Services resolves this knowledge gap by managing the complete transaction lifecycle, including athlete and dealership partner identification, partnership strategy, investment evaluation, transaction advisory, deal structuring, diligence support and ongoing consulting.

The practice structures agreements to fit specific corporate needs, allowing for investment across an entire organization or a stake in a single platform within a specific community.

Building long-term business value

This formal framework provides athletes’ agents and wealth managers with a transparent method for evaluating retail automotive investments, framing the investment as a stable, cash-flowing asset rather than a marketing arrangement.

By implementing documented approval workflows, defined roles, and clear financial metrics, dealer principals mitigate risk during the M&A process and generate transaction certainty, which enhances the ultimate capitalization and market value of the enterprise.