On Thursday, Townsquare Media announced it had sold North American Midway Entertainment to North American Fairs for $23.5 million plus a 15% residual interest in any future proceeds of a sale of NAME in the next 10 years. Townsquare purchased NAME in 2015 for $75.5 million.
The company had been shopping around the amusement company for months. It was not performing the way the company had hoped and when Townsquare changed leadership, more of a focus was placed on a “local first” strategy. In 2017, the company announced that it was initiating a strategic review of its entertainment segment, which included NAME. NAME puts on approximately 150 state fairs per year in the United States and Canada.
Back when NAME was purchased in 2015, then-CEO Steven Price said purchasing NAME would help Townsquare become less reliant on advertising. “Nearly half of NAME’s current events are within 100 miles of a Townsquare market and fit squarely within our core stated strategy of providing affordable, family-friendly entertainment content. This acquisition furthers our efforts to diversify our product offerings and increase our non-advertising based revenue, allowing us to offer more multi-channel, cross-platform content opportunities to our consumers and business clients.” Back in 2015 Townsquare was also hosting about 500 live events of its own.
For the year ended December 31, 2017, NAME generated net revenues of $92.2 million, a net loss of $33.7 million, and capital expenditures of $6.3 million.
