Amplify files a sports-ownership ETF with private holdings capped at 15%

Amplify ETF Trust on Thursday asked the SEC to register an actively managed fund that would buy listed owners and operators of professional sports teams, venues and leagues, and hold private stakes in the same theme inside a 15% cap. The shares are not for sale. The prospectus is marked subject to completion, the management fee is a blank, and the cover proposes effectiveness 75 days after filing, with the calendar date left empty.

The paper is a post-effective amendment on Form 485APOS, filed as Post-Effective Amendment No. 443 to the trust's Securities Act registration, the ordinary path for adding a new series. Under Rule 485(a)(2), the amendment can become effective automatically on that schedule unless the SEC delays it.

DGOLS and the private funds Amplify would add

The proposed series is the Amplify Pro Sports Private & Public Ownership ETF. The prospectus cover names the shares for NYSE Arca as PROS; the accompanying statement of additional information leaves both the ticker and the exchange blank. Amplify Investments LLC is the adviser. The filing describes an actively managed ETF, not an index tracker.

The listed U.S. fund already built around sports and live-event owners is the Gabelli Opportunities in Live and Sports ETF DGOLS. It had $34.3 million in assets as of Thursday and dates to December 31, 2025. Gabelli lists a 0.90% management fee, waived to a 0% net expense ratio through April 30, 2027. Its prospectus commits at least 80% of net assets to companies principally engaged in live media, entertainment and sports, through publicly marketable equity. It does not provide for private sports assets.

The concentrated public names in that book are the same listed owners any sports-ownership product has to start with.

Sportico, writing when the fund launched, quoted Gabelli portfolio manager Chris Marangi saying there were "enough public sports assets out there" to support a dedicated product. Amplify's filing accepts that public set, then tries to go past it with a private sleeve.

The private positions are expected to be classified as illiquid under Rule 22e-4, so the fund expects to limit them to 15% of net assets. The rule bars the fund from acquiring an illiquid investment if the purchase would push illiquid holdings above that line. They would be held through one or more private investment funds, initially via underlying funds run by a third-party manager, and may carry transfer restrictions, lock-up periods, capital-call structures and limited redemption rights.

Creations and redemptions can carry an extra cost that a plain equity ETF usually does not. In addition to a still-bracketed fixed transaction fee, the fund may charge a variable fee of up to 2% on creations and the same on redemptions. The prospectus itself flags the tension: if a significant share of assets sits in illiquid private investments, the fund may have to sell more-liquid holdings to meet redemptions, or sell a private position "whenever necessary" and realize a price "lower, potentially significantly lower, than its most recently determined value."

Eric Balchunas, an ETF analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, flagged the filing Thursday evening as a theme fund that would hold public sports companies "plus a few privates," arguing that private companies fit in ETFs "in the 15% illiquid bucket to 'complete' the theme." That is his reading of the structure. Grant Engelbart, vice president of investment strategy and research at Carson Group, wrote in April that holding securities deemed illiquid inside a 1940 Act ETF "has been possible for a long time, subject to a 15% cap." The paper does not name the private manager, the sub-adviser, the underlying funds, or any franchise.

The VettaFi Sports Index

The stated job is capital appreciation. Under normal market conditions the fund would invest at least 80% of net assets, plus borrowings for investment purposes, in equity securities or other financial instruments, including private investments, that provide exposure to what the filing calls Pro Sports Ownership Investments. Shareholders would get 60 days' written notice before that non-fundamental policy could change.

The public book is where the filing is most specific. Amplify says it expects those holdings to be the equity securities in the VettaFi Sports Index, a float-modified, market-cap-weighted reference index split 80% toward a Principals tranche of core owners and operators and 20% toward Participants. A Participant, as the paper defines it, is an owner or operator of professional sports teams, leagues or venues that is not a Principal and that has a sports-asset valuation of at least $300 million. VettaFi LLC, a TMX Group subsidiary, maintains the index. The filing ties that public universe to professional baseball, basketball, hockey and soccer.

If the registration becomes effective and the shares list, that public sleeve would look like a more systematic version of names already sitting in DGOLS. What still has to appear in the prospectus before the shares are buyable is the management fee, the sub-adviser, and the name of the third-party manager running the private funds. The 75-day clock is the window in which those blanks get filled, delayed, or left on the page.