Key Points
- Travel + Leisure will own the brand, mixed-use development, and management, while Wyndham contributes loyalty, distribution, marketing, and developer relationships. No financial terms, fees, or unit targets were disclosed.
- The brand has one fully branded resort open — a 185-suite, primarily vacation-ownership property on Nashville’s Music Row. Orlando and Ann Arbor projects fell through, Tuscaloosa slipped to 2028, and Chicago and Baton Rouge are due in 2027.
- Ballotti said the target is college towns and major urban markets, the same segment Hilton bought into with Graduate. Competition is building, including from the brand’s former Cap Cana property, now the Caribbean flagship of TAN Resorts.
Summary
Travel + Leisure Co. and Wyndham are partnering to turn Sports Illustrated Resorts into a hotel brand, after three years in which the sports-themed brand has leaned on timeshares and branded residences and opened just one fully branded resort. Under the deal announced Monday, developers can build a standalone Sports Illustrated hotel or attach one to a mixed-use project with vacation ownership, residences, or both. Travel + Leisure handles the brand, mixed-use development, and management; Wyndham supplies loyalty, distribution, marketing, and access to its hotel-owner relationships for development partners. The companies, which shared a corporate parent until 2018, disclosed no financial terms, fee structures, or target number of hotels. The pipeline is thin and slipping: planned projects in Orlando and Ann Arbor fell through, Tuscaloosa’s first ground-up resort has moved from late 2025 to 2028, and conversions in Chicago and Baton Rouge are due in 2027. Wyndham CEO Geoff Ballotti said the companies are targeting college towns and major urban markets, a segment where demand concentrates around football weekends and graduations. Competition in sports-themed lodging is building, including from the brand’s former Cap Cana property, which reopened in late 2025 under TAN Resorts, led by a company whose CEO previously ran Sports Illustrated Resorts.
Source: skift.com
