Sports Investing Primer

Sports investing is the business of putting institutional and private capital into professional sports properties: control and minority stakes in teams, stakes in leagues and their media companies, loans to teams and leagues, and the stadiums and districts around them. A team in a closed North American league is a scarce franchise whose value rests on a share of pooled national media money, local revenue it controls and player costs fixed by collective bargaining. European football clubs earn comparable revenue in an open system of promotion and relegation, with higher wage ratios and thinner margins (see sections 3 and 4).

Exhibit 1 compares the main assets. The NFL and NBA hold the highest values and multiples, European clubs the lowest multiples, and every North American league caps institutional ownership.

Exhibit 1: The NFL leads on value and multiple; European clubs trade at less than half its multiple

Sources: Forbes lists for the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, MLS (via Hudson River Blue, secondary), WNBA and soccer; revenue from Sportico (NFL, secondary), Sportico (NBA, secondary), Forbes (MLB, secondary), NHL, Deloitte and Deloitte; caps from Front Office Sports, Front Office Sports, Front Office Sports, PE Insights (all secondary) and Akin Gump; media from TheWrap, NBC News, Sportcal, Axios, Awful Announcing, Front Office Sports, WFMD citing Front Office Sports and SportsPro (all secondary) and NHL. Revenue measures differ by league; MLS and WNBA league revenue were not found. The soccer top 30 includes MLS clubs; the 5.6x multiple covers European clubs only. MLB aggregate cap of 30% dates from the 2019 rule. n/d = not disclosed or not found.

Seven things to know

1. Team values are at records, and rising multiples did most of the lifting. Forbes puts the average NFL team at US$9.5bn in 2026, up 34% from US$7.1bn, at 13.4x revenue (Forbes); Sportico's 2026 average is US$9.34bn (Sportico). From 2021 to 2025 the average NFL value rose 104% while league revenue rose 74% (Forbes). See section 3.
2. Control deals clear above the published lists. The Seahawks sale, completed Sep 3, 2026, set the NFL record at US$9.612bn, 14.6x revenue and 43% above Forbes's prior-year value (Wikipedia, secondary; Forbes). The Lakers majority sale at US$12.5bn, announced Aug 12, 2026 and awaiting NBA approval, is the highest price for a US team (CBS Sports, secondary). See section 8.
3. National media money is the main value driver. The NFL distributed US$14.5bn of national revenue for the 2025 season (Sportico, secondary), and national money made up 62% of NFL team revenue in 2024 (Sportico, secondary). The NBA's 11-year US$76bn package began in 2025-26 (Sportcal, secondary), and the NFL took 10% of ESPN in a deal that closed about Jan 31, 2026 (NBC News, secondary). See sections 4 and 7.
4. Institutional money enters as capped, passive minority capital. The NFL caps all funds together at 10% of a team (Front Office Sports, secondary), while MLB raised its single-firm cap to 20% from 15% in summer 2026 (Front Office Sports, secondary). NFL funds get neither governance rights nor preferred equity (Akin Gump). See section 6.
5. Sports capital is consolidating into large platforms. KKR bought Arctos, which manages about US$15bn, for US$1.4bn plus an earnout of up to US$550mm; the deal was announced in Feb 2026 and closed in May 2026 (KKR; KKR). Apollo provided US$2.6bn of debt and equity to the Yankees while the Steinbrenner family kept control (Fortune, secondary). See sections 9 and 10.
6. Return evidence rests on appraised values, and cash yields are thin. Ares, which raises sports capital and is therefore an interested party, finds that team values compounded at about 13% a year from 2007 to 2024 with a correlation of −0.01 to global equities (Ares). Operating income equals about 1.8% of the 2025 Forbes average value in the NFL and 2.1% in the NBA (author's arithmetic from Forbes), so investors earn mainly through appreciation at sale. See sections 13 and 14.
7. Losses start with counterparties and owner leverage, not with the teams. Diamond Sports, the largest regional sports network operator, filed for Chapter 11 on Mar 14, 2023, and its successor, Main Street Sports Group, was reported to have missed rights payments in Jan 2026 (Wikipedia, secondary; SportsPro, secondary). In Europe, Eagle Football reportedly defaulted on Ares's mezzanine loans in Oct 2025, and Lyon passed to Michele Kang (The Esk, secondary; Inside World Football, secondary). See sections 12 and 17.

The next dated test is labor: MLB's collective bargaining agreement (CBA) expires at 11:59 p.m. ET on Dec 1, 2026, and owners have proposed a salary cap (Sportico, secondary; see sections 16 and 21). Exhibit 2 collects the figures the rest of the primer relies on.

Exhibit 2: The numbers to remember

Sources: as listed in the table.

Sports figures mix value measures, stake types and league-specific revenue definitions, so two numbers that look comparable often are not. The primer uses Forbes as its primary valuation series and labels Sportico figures wherever they appear, because the two series use different methods (see section 3.5). Money carries a currency prefix (US$, C$, €, £), "x" marks multiples and "pp" marks percentage-point changes. Exhibit 3 defines the terms used throughout.

Exhibit 3: Fourteen terms decide whether two sports figures are comparable

Sources: definitions are the author's; figures as cited in the sections shown, principally Sportico (secondary), PitchBook, Forbes, Akin Gump, Sportico (secondary), Sportico (secondary), Wikipedia (secondary), Sportico, Withers, Peterka Partners and Premier League.

Rule of thumb (author's): before comparing two sports figures, check three things: which series produced the value, whether the stake carries control and which revenue pool the multiple divides by.

North American team equity alone is worth well over half a trillion US dollars on the published lists, and the NFL accounts for roughly half of it (see 3.2). This section defines the market, sizes it by league, traces how values got there and explains why the two main valuation series rarely agree.

3.1 What counts as sports investing

Sports investing here means institutional and private capital committed to professional sports properties: control and minority equity in teams, stakes in leagues and their commercial companies, debt to teams and leagues, and the venues and districts built around them. Media companies, betting operators and sports technology matter only through the revenue they pay to teams and leagues. College sports appear as context because the House v. NCAA settlement now allows direct revenue sharing of up to US$20.5mm per school in 2025-26 (Akerman, secondary).

3.2 Size: team values by league

Forbes puts the average NFL team at US$9.5bn, up 34% from US$7.1bn, and the 32 teams together at more than US$300bn (Forbes). Adding the latest Forbes lists for the NBA, MLB, NHL and MLS gives a North American total of about US$643bn, a figure that mixes edition dates from Oct 2025 to Sep 2026 (author's arithmetic). Revenue multiples follow the same order as values: the NFL, NBA and WNBA trade above 12x revenue, while MLB and European football sit at 7.0x or below.

Exhibit 4: The NFL and NBA hold most of the value and command the highest revenue multiples

Sources: Forbes lists for the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, MLS (via Hudson River Blue, secondary), WNBA, NWSL and soccer. *Average × number of teams (author's arithmetic). **European clubs only; the top 30 includes MLS clubs.

Women's leagues are small in dollars but grew fastest: the average WNBA team rose 52% in a year, and the Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia expansion teams awarded in Jun 2025 paid US$250mm each (Forbes).

3.3 History of value growth

NFL values compounded at about 13.8% a year from 2010 to 2025 and at about 18.4% from 2020 to 2025, with most of the recent gain coming from a higher multiple rather than higher revenue (author's arithmetic from Forbes). Between 2021 and 2025 the average NFL team value rose 104% while league revenue rose 74% (Forbes).

Exhibit 5: The NFL revenue multiple has doubled since 2020

Sources: Forbes 2010, 2015, 2020, 2025 (also source for the 2020 and 2024 multiples) and 2026.

The 2010 edition recorded the first decline since Forbes began tracking NFL values in 1998, which makes it the only down year in the series (Forbes). Other leagues followed the same path. Sportico found that from 2012 to 2021 average values rose 387% in the NBA, 215% in the NFL and MLB and 207% in the NHL (Sportico). The average NBA team is worth nearly 20 times its 2001 level (Statista). Comparable 2005–2020 averages for the NBA, MLB and NHL were not found, so Exhibit 5 shows the NFL only.

3.4 Segmentation

The market splits three ways, and each split maps to a different set of rules and buyers.

• By league: the NFL alone is worth more than the NBA, MLB, NHL and MLS combined on Forbes figures (Exhibit 4).
• By stake type: control stakes, individual minority stakes, passive fund minority stakes, league-level commercial stakes such as CVC's in LaLiga and Ligue 1, and structured debt or preferred equity (see sections 6, 9 and 10).
• By investor type: billionaire control buyers, sports-focused funds, credit managers, sovereign wealth funds, pensions and family offices (see section 5).

3.5 Where sources disagree

Forbes and Sportico usually agree on league averages within 10% but can differ by more than 20% on a single club, and transaction prices often land above both. The gaps come from method. Sportico includes related real estate and businesses in its NBA and MLS figures, putting all 30 NBA teams at about US$165bn against Forbes's "just over" US$160bn (Sportico; Forbes). A sale price also reflects control rights, deal structure and timing, which a list estimate cannot observe.

Exhibit 6: Transaction prices have run ahead of both valuation lists

Sources: Forbes and Sportico lists cited in Exhibit 4; Sportico NFL 2026, NBA 2025, MLB 2026 (via RealGM, secondary) and soccer 2026 (via Bleacher Report, secondary); transactions from Wikipedia (secondary), CBS Sports (secondary) and Wikipedia (secondary). Percentage gaps are author's arithmetic.

The Seahawks sale shows the pattern: the Khosla-led group paid US$9.612bn, an NFL record at 14.6x revenue and 43% above Forbes's prior-year value (Forbes). Headline prices also need unpacking. The Lakers' US$10bn 2025 price bought a majority while the Buss family kept about 15% (CBS Sports, secondary).

A North American team's value rests on a share of pooled national media money that it neither negotiates nor competes for, plus local revenue it controls, minus a player cost fixed as a share of revenue by collective bargaining. Exhibit 7 maps the flows; Exhibit 8 compares the four largest leagues.

4.1 National media and revenue sharing

National revenue is the base of the NFL model. The league distributed US$14.5bn across 32 teams for the 2025 season, more than US$450mm per team before league assessments (Sportico, secondary). That pool exceeded the central revenue of all NBA, MLB and NHL teams combined (Bleacher Report, secondary). In 2024 national distributions made up 62% of NFL team revenue, and only the Cowboys earned more than half their revenue locally (Sportico, secondary).

The money comes mainly from 11-year NFL media deals running through 2033, commonly cited at about US$110bn, although Sportico cites US$125bn including later additions (TheWrap, secondary; Sportico, secondary). The NBA's 11-year US$76bn package with Disney, NBCUniversal and Amazon began in 2025-26 (Sportcal, secondary). Section 7 covers the deals in detail.

4.2 Local revenue: tickets, premium seating and local media

Local revenue separates rich teams from average ones. NFL ticketing, including premium seating, brought in US$4.1bn in 2024, or 19% of team revenue, led by the 49ers at US$176mm; concessions, parking and events added US$1.55bn (Sportico, secondary). Local revenue matters more in baseball, where the Dodgers became the first MLB team to reach US$1bn of revenue in 2024 (Sportico, secondary).

Local television, once the second pillar, is breaking down. Diamond Sports filed for Chapter 11 on Mar 14, 2023 and emerged as Main Street Sports Group, which was then reported to have missed rights payments in Jan 2026 (Wikipedia, secondary; SportsPro, secondary). As a result, MLB produces local broadcasts for 15 teams in 2026 (SportsPro, secondary). Section 7.2 covers the collapse.

4.3 Sponsorship and betting partnerships

Sponsorship is the fastest-growing local line. NFL team sponsorship reached US$2.49bn in the 2024 season, up 6%, with financial services contributing US$250mm (Sportico, secondary). MLB team sponsorship reached US$2.05bn in 2025, up 68% since 2022, helped by jersey patches that 28 of 30 teams now sell (Forbes, secondary).

Betting reaches teams mainly through sponsorship and league data deals rather than as a separate revenue line. Early deals were small: in 2018-19 the NFL earned US$62mm from three operators and the NBA US$49.83mm from five (Sportcal, secondary). Current league-wide betting totals were not found. The NFL's 2020 collective bargaining agreement (CBA) counts revenue from legal gambling in stadiums toward the players' "media kicker" (Wikipedia, secondary).

4.4 Real estate and venues

Venues and the land around them give owners revenue that sits outside the national pool. The Braves paired a US$622mm ballpark with The Battery Atlanta, a mixed-use development budgeted at US$452mm (Wikipedia, secondary). The Chiefs' proposed Kansas project totals US$4bn across stadium, district and headquarters, split 60% public and 40% team (KCUR, secondary). The valuation lists capture part of this value: Sportico's US$23bn total for all 30 MLS clubs includes real estate and related businesses (MLSsoccer.com). Section 11 covers stadium finance.

4.5 The cost side: players, caps and CBAs

CBAs fix the player share of revenue, which caps the largest cost and makes team margins predictable. NFL players receive 48% of all revenue, rising to 48.8% through the media kicker, under a CBA that runs through the 2030 season (Wikipedia, secondary). NBA players receive 51% of basketball related income (BRI), enforced by a 10% salary escrow; players forfeited more than US$480mm in 2024-25 (Sportico, secondary). MLB has no salary cap, and its CBA expires at 11:59 p.m. ET on Dec 1, 2026; owners have proposed a US$245mm cap and a US$171mm floor (Sportico, secondary).

With cost tied to revenue, operating income scales with the league. Forbes estimates average operating income at US$127mm for NFL teams, US$113mm for NBA teams and US$74mm for NHL teams (Forbes). European football lacks this link: Premier League wages reached £4.4bn, or 65% of £6.8bn revenue, in 2024/25 (Deloitte).

Exhibit 7: In a closed league, national money is pooled and shared, and players take a fixed share before owners

Sources: Sportico (secondary); Sportico (secondary); Sportico (secondary); Wikipedia (secondary); Forbes; Front Office Sports (secondary); Sportico citing Fitch (secondary). NFL figures shown.

Exhibit 8: The NFL shares the most revenue; MLB has neither a salary cap nor a fixed player share

Sources: Sportico (secondary); Sportico (secondary); ESPN (secondary); TheWrap (secondary); Sportico (secondary); NBA; Forbes (secondary); Axios (secondary); NHL; Sportico (secondary); Front Office Sports (secondary); NHL; Awful Announcing (secondary). Revenue measures differ by league.

Rule of thumb (author's): the larger the share of team revenue that is national and the firmer the cap, the more a team's value behaves like a claim on league media contracts and the less it depends on how the team plays or where it is located.

Demand comes from a widening buyer base chasing a fixed supply of teams, and league rule changes since 2019 have let institutional money join billionaires at the table. Prices set records in 2026 because both conditions held at once.

Who buys and why

• Individual control buyers still set the price, now usually backed by institutions. The Seahawks group led by Vinod Khosla had 12 co-owners including Sixth Street, Carlyle and Dynasty Equity (Wikipedia, secondary).
• Sports-focused funds buy passive minority stakes. Arctos, with about US$15bn of assets under management (AUM), is the only firm approved for multi-team ownership in all five major US leagues; KKR bought it for US$1.4bn plus an earnout of up to US$550mm (KKR).
• Credit and multi-strategy managers mix equity, preferred equity and debt. Apollo provided US$2.6bn of debt and equity to the Yankees while the Steinbrenner family kept control (Fortune, secondary).
• Sovereign wealth funds enter mostly where rules allow. QIA paid US$200mm for 5% of Monumental Sports & Entertainment, while NFL rules limit sovereigns to 7.5% of an approved fund (Front Office Sports, secondary).
• Pensions invest through funds. CalPERS committed US$775mm to a Sixth Street sports fund in Nov 2025 (Bloomberg, secondary).
• Family offices and wealthy families take minority stakes directly. Julia Koch and family bought 10% of the Giants at US$10.3bn (CNBC, secondary).

Why prices rose

Scarcity is the base driver: closed leagues add teams rarely, and expansion fee estimates for the NBA run to US$7–10bn per team, above the league's US$5.4bn Forbes average (Flashscore, secondary). Media growth adds income on top. Rule changes widened the buyer pool, and the US tax code lets buyers amortize about 100% of the purchase price over 15 years, a regime the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) left intact after a House proposal to cap it at 50% was excluded from the final law (SABR, secondary; Withers). Higher rates work the other way, raising the cost of acquisition debt.

Exhibit 9: Most demand drivers pointed up in 2026; media renewals and labor are the near-term tests

Sources: as listed in the table.

Supply also comes from estates and long-held family stakes rather than from cyclical sellers: both the Seahawks and the Trail Blazers were sold by the Paul Allen estate (Wikipedia, secondary). The two readings that could break the trend are dated. MLB's labor talks start at the CBA expiry on Dec 1, 2026, and the NFL's media opt-out arrives after the 2029-30 season (see sections 7 and 16).

North American leagues admit institutional money only as capped, passive minority capital, while European football leaves fund stakes uncapped and instead polices who controls a club and how it spends. Exhibit 10 sets out the rules by league.

6.1 North America

Every major league now allows funds, and the NFL remains the most restrictive. MLB moved first in 2019, the NBA and NHL had rules in force by 2021, and NFL owners voted 31–1 to admit approved private equity funds on Aug 27, 2024 (Akin Gump; Front Office Sports, secondary).

Exhibit 10: North American leagues cap funds at 10–20% per team; Europe regulates control instead

Sources: Akin Gump; Private Equity Wire, secondary; Front Office Sports, secondary; Front Office Sports, secondary; Front Office Sports, secondary; SportsAcquisition, secondary; PE Insights, secondary; Sportico via Yahoo, secondary; Premier League; Sky Sports, secondary; Peterka Partners; Bundeskartellamt. n/d = not disclosed. Rules as reported by secondary sources, not league documents.

NFL

The NFL caps institutional money at 10% of a team, whether one fund or several hold it. A single fund may own 3–10% of a team's common equity, and stakes from several firms together cannot exceed 10%, which matches the Patriots deal (Sixth Street 3% plus a 5% individual investor) (Front Office Sports, secondary). A fund must hold for at least six years and may own stakes in up to six teams (Private Equity Wire, secondary). It also needs US$2bn of committed capital, cannot put more than 20% of its assets into one team and gets neither governance rights nor preferred equity (Akin Gump). Sovereign wealth funds cannot invest directly, but they can own up to 7.5% of an approved fund (Front Office Sports, secondary).

Only a handful of firms qualify, and only four have invested. The approved list is Arctos, Ares and Sixth Street plus a consortium of Blackstone, Carlyle, CVC, Dynasty Equity and Ludis, from which Blackstone and CVC have since left (Private Equity Wire, secondary). Deals so far cover the Bills, Chargers, Dolphins, Patriots and Browns, with Arctos's 10% of the Falcons at US$10.6bn awaiting an owner vote expected in Oct 2026 (Front Office Sports, secondary; Hoodline, secondary). Controlling owners must hold at least 30% (Private Equity Wire, secondary), and debt is capped separately (see section 10).

NBA, MLB, NHL and MLS

The other leagues allow 20% per fund and about 30% in aggregate. The NBA set its rules in 2021: 20% per fund, five teams per fund, no more than 30% of any team held by funds and no governance rights (Front Office Sports, secondary). An NBA fund needs at least US$750mm of assets and may not put more than 25% of them into one team, and the league allows sovereign exceptions (Akin Gump). The Qatar Investment Authority used that route to buy 5% of Monumental Sports & Entertainment for US$200mm in 2023 (Front Office Sports, secondary). Funds reach 20 of 30 NBA teams in some form, but fewer than 10 teams have direct fund investors (Front Office Sports, secondary).

The NHL and MLS mirror these limits with lower entry tickets. NHL funds may hold non-voting stakes in up to five teams with a US$20mm minimum (PE Insights, secondary). MLS limits funds to four clubs and requires US$500mm of committed capital (Akin Gump). The NBA, NHL, MLB and MLS do not ban sovereign wealth funds (Front Office Sports, secondary).

Rule of thumb (author's): outside the NFL, funds can own up to about 30% of a team in aggregate; inside it, 10%. Funds own economics, not votes.

6.2 Europe

European football has no fund caps but three overlapping control regimes: a statutory regulator in England, UEFA's multi-club limits and Germany's members' majority. League-level private equity sits outside these club rules (see section 12.4).

England has moved from league self-regulation to a statutory owner test. The Independent Football Regulator gained powers over current owners in the top five tiers on Dec 12, 2025, including fines, censure and forced sales (Sky Sports, secondary). From May 2026 all new owners, directors and senior executives need the regulator's approval (same source). Premier League clubs also adopted a Squad Cost Ratio that limits squad costs to 85% of football revenue and net player-trading profit from 2026/27, with a 30% multi-year allowance above it subject to a levy (Premier League). UEFA's equivalent threshold is 70%, and the clubs rejected "top-to-bottom anchoring," which would have worked as a de facto salary cap (same source).

UEFA's multi-club rule decides eligibility on a single date. Two clubs under common "decisive influence" cannot enter the same UEFA competition, and from 2025/26 the test date is Mar 1 before the season instead of Jun 3 (Peterka Partners). UEFA moved Crystal Palace down to the Conference League on Jul 11, 2025 because Eagle Football controlled both Palace and Lyon on Mar 1, and the Court of Arbitration for Sport dismissed its appeal on Aug 11, 2025 (Sky Sports, secondary). Owners avoid the rule with blind trusts or restructurings, as Girona/Man City and Man United/Nice did in 2024/25 (Peterka Partners).

Germany's 50+1 rule survived its antitrust review. In Aug 2026 the Bundeskartellamt found the members'-control rule permissible if applied consistently. It asked for stronger protections for already exempt clubs such as Leverkusen and Wolfsburg and set no deadline (Bundeskartellamt).

6.3 Changes in 2025–2026 and pending

Rules are loosening in North America and tightening in England. MLB and the NBA widened access for funds in 2026 while the NFL held its line:

• Nov 2025–May 2026: England added the Squad Cost Ratio and the regulator's owner powers and approval test (see section 6.2).
• Summer 2026: MLB raised its single-firm cap to 20% from 15%, set a 15% control-owner minimum and barred a fund from owning more than the control owner; about 10 MLB teams have fund investors (Front Office Sports, secondary).
• Sep 18, 2026: the NBA let a firm invest in a team alongside its executives, provided the firm holds no interest in another team, a change that cleared a path for the Lakers sale (Bloomberg via Yahoo Finance, secondary).
• Sep 24, 2026: the NFL kept its 10% cap and did not expect to raise it at the Oct 2026 meeting (Front Office Sports, secondary).

Four decisions are pending. NFL owners are expected to vote on the Arctos–Falcons stake in Oct 2026 (Hoodline, secondary). The NBA Board of Governors has yet to approve the Lakers sale (Bloomberg via Yahoo Finance, secondary). English clubs apply for regulator licences between Nov 1, 2026 and Feb 26, 2027 (Skadden; Lewis Silkin gives Nov 2). Multi-club owners must restructure before UEFA's Mar 1, 2027 test date for 2027/28 competitions (Peterka Partners).

National media contracts are the largest and most predictable revenue line for North American teams, and their renewals set the pace of team values. The NFL's 2025 national revenue exceeded the central revenue of all NBA, MLB and NHL teams combined (Bleacher Report citing Sportico, secondary; see section 4). Three shifts now shape the market: national deals are repricing upward, local cable rights have collapsed and streamers and equity swaps are displacing traditional buyers.

7.1 National deals

The NFL and NBA have locked in long, rising contracts; the NHL and MLB face renewals before 2029. The NBA's 11-year, US$76bn package with Disney, NBCUniversal and Amazon began in 2025-26, and Disney's new fee of about US$2.6bn a year is 73% above its previous one (Sportcal, secondary). MLB took the opposite approach with three-year deals through 2028 that add about US$800mm a year from ESPN, NBC/Peacock and Netflix (Axios, secondary).

Exhibit 11: The NFL and NBA hold the largest national contracts, and most expire after 2028

Sources: TheWrap, secondary; Sportcal, secondary; Axios, secondary; Awful Announcing, secondary; NHL.com; WFMD citing Front Office Sports, secondary; SportsPro, secondary; Inside World Football, secondary; SportsPro, secondary; SportsPro, secondary. NFL total is the commonly cited figure; Sportico cites US$125bn including later additions. Per-season figures for the NFL, NBA, NHL (Canada) and WNBA and the WNBA end year are the author's arithmetic (total ÷ term); others as reported. Sportico gives the Rogers deal as US$7.7bn. MLB excludes continuing Fox, TBS and Apple deals. LaLiga's per-season value is not reported on one basis: Telefónica pays €527.17mm and DAZN €522.83mm a year, while €6.135bn over five seasons (2027/28–2031/32) would be about €1.23bn a season (author's arithmetic); the season count is not confirmed. European rows are domestic rights only. n/d = not disclosed.

The NFL is trying to reprice early, and its partners are resisting. All partners except Disney/ESPN can opt out after the 2029-30 season (TheWrap, secondary). After Skydance's US$8bn takeover of Paramount, the league invoked a change-of-control clause and sought at least US$3bn a year from CBS, against its current US$2.1bn (SportsPro, secondary). Those talks paused in Aug 2026, and Fox said it would not renegotiate before the 2029 opt-out (Sports Media Watch, secondary).

The NHL is next to renew in the US. Its ESPN and TNT deals average about US$625mm a year and run through 2027-28, and as of Jun 3, 2026 the league reported only "casual discussions" (Awful Announcing, secondary). In Canada, Rogers's 12-year, C$11bn deal started with the 2026-27 season (NHL.com).

7.2 The local-TV collapse

The failure of the largest regional sports network operator removed a guaranteed revenue line for dozens of teams. Diamond Sports had borrowed nearly US$9bn to buy 21 Fox regional networks and filed for Chapter 11 on Mar 14, 2023 after missing a US$140mm interest payment (NewscastStudio, secondary; Wikipedia, secondary). It emerged on Jan 2, 2025 as Main Street Sports Group but missed rights payments in Jan 2026, and nine MLB teams terminated their contracts (MLB Trade Rumors, secondary). On Apr 6, 2026 Main Street announced it would cease operations after the 2025-26 NBA regular season and NHL first round, leaving 13 NBA and seven NHL teams without a carrier (NewscastStudio, secondary).

Leagues have stepped in, but at lower guaranteed fees. MLB produces local broadcasts for 15 teams in 2026, and ESPN distributes MLB.TV, including in-market games (SportsPro, secondary). That model pays teams less guaranteed revenue than the old cable contracts (MLB Trade Rumors, secondary). Local rights now feed into labor talks: MLB owners have said they would share local TV rights if players accept a salary cap ahead of the Dec 1, 2026 CBA expiry (Fox News, secondary; see section 16).

7.3 Streaming and equity-for-rights

The NFL took equity in its partner instead of cash alone. The NFL–ESPN deal closed about Jan 31, 2026: ESPN acquired NFL Network, cable and satellite distribution of RedZone and NFL Fantasy, and the NFL received 10% of ESPN (NBC News, secondary). Neither party disclosed a price or a value for the stake (Wikipedia, secondary).

Streamers are now core buyers rather than add-ons. Amazon pays the NBA US$1.8bn a year (Sportcal, secondary). Netflix extended its NFL deal by four years in May 2026 and expanded it to five games (Deadline, secondary). Apple holds Formula 1's exclusive US rights from 2026 for about US$140mm a year (Axios, secondary). Apple's MLS deal shows the risk on the other side: the original US$2.5bn, 10-year contract was restructured, and MLS ended Season Pass to put all matches on Apple TV from 2026 (Front Office Sports, secondary).

7.4 Europe's rights market

Europe's domestic rights have flattened outside England and Spain, and France shows the downside. Deloitte expects Big Five revenue growth to slow in 2025/26 and 2026/27, with a possible plateau or decline in some markets (Deloitte).

• Premier League: domestic rights rose to £6.7bn over four seasons from 2025/26, against £5bn for the prior three (SportsPro, secondary). International rights of about £2.1bn a year, up 27%, take the cycle to £12.25bn (SportsPro, secondary). Club broadcast revenue still grew only 2% to £3.4bn in 2024/25 (Deloitte).
• UEFA: UEFA's gross revenue threshold for its club competitions is €4.4bn for 2026/27, of which it will distribute €3.317bn to clubs (UEFA Circular 48/2026). From 2027, Relevent becomes the global commercial partner, and UK rights rise to £565mm a season (about £2.26bn over four seasons, author's arithmetic), up from £455mm (SportsPro, secondary).
• LaLiga: the 2027–2032 domestic deal is worth €6.135bn, up 9% a season, split almost evenly between Telefónica and DAZN (Inside World Football, secondary).
• Bundesliga and Serie A: the Bundesliga's 2025–29 deal rose 2% to €4.48bn, and Serie A's €4.5bn deal through 2028/29 was below its predecessor (SportsPro, secondary; Sportico, secondary).
• Ligue 1: DAZN walked away from its five-year deal, and the league's own streaming service, Ligue 1+, had more than one million subscribers at €14.99 a month (SportsPro, secondary). The league expects to distribute about €142mm of media revenue in 2025/26, against about €500mm from broadcasters previously (same source). Ligue 1 club revenue fell 15% to €2.2bn in 2024/25 (Deloitte).

The French case matters for investors because CVC owns 13% of Ligue 1's media company, bought for €1.5bn in 2022, and has reportedly cut the stake's valuation (Inside World Football, secondary; OneFootball, secondary; see section 12.4). Media rights lift values when buyers compete, and they cut them when a single buyer exits.

Control prices for the scarcest teams reset in 2025–2026, and minority stakes in NFL teams have cleared at or near published valuations rather than at a visible discount. The Los Angeles Lakers agreed a majority sale to Josh Kushner and Bob Iger at US$12.5bn on Aug 12, 2026, the highest price for a US team, with NBA approval still pending (Forbes, secondary). The Seattle Seahawks sold for US$9.612bn, an NFL record, and the deal completed on Sep 3, 2026 (Wikipedia, secondary).

8.1 Control sales

Prices climbed faster than the lists that track them. Forbes put the Seahawks price at 14.6x revenue, 43% above its prior-year US$6.7bn valuation of the team (Forbes via Yahoo). Sportico calculated that the price was 59% above the previous NFL record (CBS Sports summarizing Sportico, secondary), the US$6.05bn Josh Harris group paid for the Washington Commanders in 2023 (Wikipedia, secondary). The Lakers repriced by US$2.5bn in about a year: Mark Walter bought control from the Buss family at US$10bn in a deal that closed in Oct 2025, and the Kushner–Iger price is 25% higher (CBS Sports, secondary; author's arithmetic).

Exhibit 12: NBA and NFL control prices now run several times those in MLB and the NHL

Sources: CBS Sports (secondary); Wikipedia: Seahawks, Celtics, Commanders, Trail Blazers, Padres, Orioles, Rays (all secondary); Yahoo Sports (secondary) for Lightning. Multiples: Forbes NBA 2025, Forbes NFL 2026, Forbes MLB 2026, Forbes NHL 2025. Deal-level multiples are not disclosed except for the Seahawks.

The gap between leagues tracks the multiples: an NBA or NFL team trades at about 13x revenue on Forbes's numbers, against 7.0x in MLB and 8.9x in the NHL (see section 3).

European control deals span the full range from trophy to distress. Apollo Sports Capital's first control deal bought a majority of Atlético de Madrid at a valuation of €2.5bn including debt (PitchBook). At the other end, Michele Kang acquired 87.78% of Olympique Lyonnais in Jun 2026 for US$30mm plus up to US$81mm of commitments over two years, after its parent Eagle Football entered UK administration (Inside World Football, secondary). Section 17 covers the Eagle collapse.

8.2 Minority and institutional stakes

The NFL's 2024 rule change created a minority market that prices close to the published lists. Owners voted 31–1 in Aug 2024 to admit approved private equity funds (Front Office Sports, secondary). By 2025, half a dozen teams had sold stakes at valuations of at least US$8bn (Sportico).

Exhibit 13: Implied NFL values roughly doubled from the first fund deals to the 2026 stakes

Sources: Sportico (secondary) for Bills and Dolphins; NBC News and Slate (secondary) for Eagles; Sportcal (secondary) for Giants and Patriots; Forbes via Yahoo for Browns, Raiders, Falcons and Lin Bin; Sportico (secondary) for Monumental; JOE (secondary) for the Liverpool stake and SportsPro (secondary) for its ~US$7bn value; JOE gives £5–6bn. Stake sizes conflict for Bills (8% vs 10%), Eagles (8% vs 11%) and Browns (3% vs 10%); n/d = not disclosed.

The implied value of an NFL stake rose from US$5.8bn for the Bills to US$12.5bn for the Dolphins holding company in about two years, a gain of 116% (author's arithmetic). The 2026 stakes priced above Forbes's average team value of US$9.5bn (Forbes via Yahoo), and the Falcons stake set a record at US$10.6bn (Hoodline, secondary). Outside the NFL, the same pattern appears: QIA and Arctos bought Monumental shares at US$7.2bn enterprise value in 2025, against the US$4.05bn at which QIA entered in Jun 2023 (Sportico, secondary).

8.3 Expansion fees

Expansion fees show how leagues price new scarcity, and they have risen fastest in women's sports. WNBA fees rose from US$50mm for Golden State, which began play in 2025, to US$250mm each for Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia, awarded on Jun 30, 2025, a fivefold increase (Wikipedia, secondary; author's arithmetic). Investors in the Cleveland and Detroit teams have since valued them at US$290mm and US$325mm (Forbes).

Exhibit 14: A new NBA team could cost more than an existing NFL team

Sources: NBA; Flashscore (secondary, citing Shams Charania) for the NBA estimate; Wikipedia: Utah Mammoth, San Diego FC, WNBA expansion (all secondary); Forbes for Denver; Hoodline (secondary) for other NWSL fees. No MLB expansion award as of Oct 4, 2026.

At its top end, the reported NBA range of US$7–10bn would exceed the average NFL team value, though the league has set no fee (NBA). Incumbent owners can share in the proceeds: in the Utah deal, US$200mm of the US$1.2bn fee was a de facto relocation fee split among the other 31 NHL clubs (Wikipedia, secondary).

8.4 How stakes are priced

Control premium. Control buyers pay above the published lists when a scarce team comes to market. The Seahawks cleared at 14.6x revenue against the 13.4x NFL average (Forbes via Yahoo), and the Kushner–Iger Lakers price sits 25% above Forbes's Oct 2025 Lakers value, which matched Walter's US$10bn purchase (Forbes; author's arithmetic).

Minority discount. No systematic dataset on minority discounts was found, and the available deals show little discount. The Giants stake at US$10.3bn compares with Forbes's 2025 Giants value of US$10.1bn, and the Patriots stake at US$9bn matches Forbes's 2025 Patriots value (Sportcal, secondary; Forbes). A Miami Marlins stake of about 15% sold at US$1.55bn in 2025, above Sportico's US$1.45bn valuation of the team (Sportico, secondary). Fund stakes nonetheless carry limits that would normally widen a discount: in the NFL they have no governance rights, cannot use preferred equity (Akin Gump) and must be held for at least six years (Private Equity Wire, secondary).

Rule of thumb (author's): where the buyer pool is capped and few stakes come to market, scarcity offsets the usual minority discount, so a passive stake prices close to the latest list value.

Staged and blended deals. Tranches and blended prices let one headline value hide several prices. Arctos is buying 10% of the Falcons in two tranches over 18 months at a blended US$10.6bn (Hoodline, secondary). The Raiders sold 25% and 3.5% at US$9.9bn and US$11bn in the same season (Forbes via Yahoo). Sellers also keep residual stakes, as the Buss family did with about 15% of the Lakers in 2025 (CBS Sports, secondary), or grant options: Fenway Sports Group sold about 38% of Liverpool to 1892 Holdings, led by Amit Bhatia, with an option for the buyer to take control within 12 months (JOE, secondary).

Financing limits. Debt caps push buyers toward large equity groups. An NFL club may carry US$700mm of debt, and a new buyer up to US$1.5bn (section 10), so the Seahawks group assembled 12 co-owners, including Sixth Street, Carlyle and Dynasty Equity (Wikipedia, secondary). Section 10 covers debt limits.

A small group of managers holds most institutional capital in sports, and its strategies fall into four types: passive multi-team minority funds, flexible credit and hybrid capital, league-level commercial stakes and permanent-capital platforms. KKR's purchase of Arctos in 2026 folded the most active minority-stake specialist into a manager with US$759bn of AUM (Dakota, secondary).

9.1 Fund strategies and structures

• League-sanctioned minority funds hold passive, multi-team stakes. The NFL requires an approved fund to have US$2bn of committed capital and limits any one team to 20% of fund assets; the NBA requires at least US$750mm of assets and a 25% concentration limit (Akin Gump).
• Credit and hybrid capital funds teams without diluting control. Apollo provided US$2.6bn of debt and equity to the New York Yankees in Aug 2026, and the Steinbrenner family kept full control (Fortune, secondary). Ares put US$500mm of preferred equity into BlueCo, Chelsea's owner, in Sep 2023 (The Esk, secondary).
• Revenue participations buy a share of a club's income rather than its equity. Sixth Street paid €360mm for a share of non-sporting revenue at Real Madrid's Bernabéu (Malay Mail, secondary) and bought 25% of Barcelona's LaLiga TV rights for 25 years (Barca Blaugranes, secondary).
• League-level stakes buy a share of a whole competition's media income. CVC holds commercial stakes in LaLiga and Ligue 1, among others (SportsPro, secondary); section 12 covers these deals.
• Permanent and semi-liquid vehicles widen the investor base. Apollo Sports Capital draws on Athene's balance sheet as permanent capital (Dakota, secondary). Ares plans a semi-liquid fund with quarterly redemptions for individual investors (WealthManagement, secondary).
• Newer managers are raising smaller, focused funds. Otro Capital closed its first fund at US$1.2bn in Feb 2026 (Business Wire). Mark Cuban's Harbinger Sports Partners closed at US$450mm with a 7–10 year exit horizon, and Ariel Investments reached a US$250mm first close for a women's sports fund (Dakota, secondary).

9.2 Largest investors

Exhibit 15 shows that the largest investors span credit, equity and league-level stakes; its scale column mixes fund sizes, firm AUM and single deals because managers disclose different measures.

Exhibit 15: Arctos, Sixth Street, Ares, Apollo and CVC lead institutional sports capital

Sources: KKR/Business Wire; Business Wire; Sportico (secondary); Business Wire; PitchBook; PitchBook; SportsPro (secondary); SportsPro (secondary); Business Wire; Front Office Sports (secondary); Dakota (secondary); PitchBook; SportsPro (secondary); The Race (secondary). Ares Fund II figures are from WealthManagement (secondary); PitchBook reported a US$1.4bn first close in Aug 2025.

9.3 Liquidity and exits

Exits remain the asset class's weak point, and the KKR–Arctos deal is the clearest sign that managers are building their own liquidity. KKR agreed to buy Arctos, which manages about US$15bn, for US$1.4bn of initial consideration plus an earnout of up to US$550mm; the deal was announced on Feb 4, 2026 and closed in May 2026 (KKR/Business Wire; KKR close release). Arctos was the only firm approved for multi-team ownership in all five major US leagues (KKR/Business Wire).

• Control sales are the main exit for minority funds. Dyal HomeCourt bought into the Phoenix Suns at a US$1.55bn valuation in Jul 2021 and exited at US$4bn when Mat Ishbia bought control, a 158% gain over about 18 months (Sportico, secondary).
• Dedicated liquidity capital is growing. Arctos entered 2025 with US$11.3bn in sports-related funds plus a US$2.7bn liquidity strategy (Sportico, secondary), and its Keystone fund closed at US$6.2bn in Jun 2026 to provide GP financing (PitchBook).
• Exit uncertainty slowed NFL adoption. Unanswered questions about how funds would exit NFL stakes slowed the first wave of deals (Front Office Sports, secondary), and only four approved firms had invested as of Sep 2026 (Front Office Sports, secondary).
• Price gaps can stall sales. Otro's group holds 24% of the Alpine F1 team, and talks to sell it to Mercedes failed over valuation in Jun 2026 (RACER, secondary).
• League-level platforms are heading to public markets. CVC plans an IPO or sale of Global Sport Group within about three years (SportsPro, secondary).

Fund performance remains private: coverage of the KKR deal disclosed no Arctos IRR or distributions (Sportico, secondary). Section 14 reviews the return evidence.

9.4 Sovereign and pension capital

Sovereign funds reach US teams mostly through other managers' vehicles, while Gulf funds own clubs directly in Europe. The NFL bars direct sovereign investment but lets a sovereign fund own up to 7.5% of an approved private equity vehicle (Front Office Sports, secondary). The NBA allows sovereign equity of up to 20%, and MLS is open to sovereign investment (Morgan Lewis).

• QIA invests as a passive minority holder in the US. It paid US$200mm for 5% of Monumental, owner of the Wizards and Capitals, in 2023 (Front Office Sports, secondary), and added shares in 2025 at a 78% higher enterprise value (section 8.2).
• PIF is shifting toward returns. PIF's 2026–2030 strategy emphasizes financial returns, and it has sold 70% of Al-Hilal while keeping about 85% of Newcastle (Golf Channel, secondary). It plans to stop funding LIV Golf after the 2026 season, and Newcastle is discussing a minority stake sale (SportsPro, secondary).
• US public pensions invest as fund LPs. CalPERS committed US$775mm to a Sixth Street sports fund in Nov 2025 (Bloomberg, secondary), and Oregon PERF committed US$150mm to Arctos's third fund in Apr 2026 (Dakota, secondary). Arctos's LP base spans pensions, endowments, insurers, family offices and wealth platforms (Business Wire).
• Canadian pensions have owned teams directly. Ontario Teachers' bought into Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment for C$180mm in 1994 and sold its 79.53% to Bell and Rogers for C$1.32bn in 2011 (Benefits Canada, secondary). Rogers took full ownership on Oct 1, 2026 by buying the remaining 25% for a reported 4.35bn (currency not stated in the source) (Daily Faceoff, secondary).
• Family offices often enter through consortia. The Eduardo Saverin family office joined 1892 Holdings at Liverpool (JOE, secondary), and the Khosla, Griffith and Deeter families bought about 6% of the San Francisco 49ers at US$8.6bn (Front Office Sports, secondary).

Sports debt in North America runs mainly through league-wide programs that borrow against national media contracts, while European clubs borrow on their own balance sheets against media rights, stadiums and owner support. Most of the detail below comes from trade press that reports rating-agency notes; those items are marked secondary.

10.1 League credit facilities and team debt limits

The leagues pool team borrowing and cap it. Each of the three largest US leagues runs a central vehicle that lends to participating clubs, secured by national media revenue, and Fitch rates all three in the A category (Sportico, secondary, citing Fitch). MLB's trust structure isolates bondholders from the default of any single team because the collateral is contractual media revenue from investment-grade broadcasters (Sportico, secondary). Fitch puts league leverage at 1.8x for MLB, 2.0x for the NFL and 2.7x for the NBA on projected 2024-25 figures (Sportico, secondary, citing Fitch). Exhibit 16 shows that per-team limits are small next to franchise values (see section 3).

Exhibit 16: League programs carry A-category ratings, and per-team debt limits are small next to franchise values

Sources: Sportico, NFL, Sportico, MLB, Sportico, NBA (all secondary, citing Fitch); Sportico, secondary, and Front Office Sports, secondary (NFL limits); ESPN, secondary; Covenant Lite, secondary. MLB total is author's arithmetic.

The NFL has raised its limits three times since 2022. The per-club cap rose from US$500mm to US$600mm in fall 2022 and to US$700mm in Oct 2023, and the cap for new buyers reached US$1.4bn in May 2024 (Sportico, secondary). A Sep 2026 report puts the ceiling for new buyers at up to US$1.5bn, made up of US$700mm of acquisition debt and US$800mm of operating debt (Front Office Sports, secondary); no league announcement of that change was found. The league also lends for stadiums: under its G-5 program, approved Dec 2023, each team can borrow up to US$300mm if it matches the loan with its own money and some public support (SBJ, secondary). Owners can waive the cap for a stadium, as they did when they approved a US$650mm waiver for the Bills in 2025 (The Stadium Business, secondary).

Team-level loans borrow the league's credit. Madison Square Garden Sports refinanced the Knicks' US$425mm revolver and the Rangers' US$250mm revolver in Nov 2025, both due Nov 6, 2030, with pricing tied to the ratings of the NBA and NHL league-wide facilities and a minimum debt service ratio of 1.5x (MSGS 8-K). League rules also shape stadium-bond reserves: the Yankee Stadium PILOT bonds hold reserves to cover debt service if MLB locks out players in 2027 (Sportico, secondary), after the CBA expires on Dec 1, 2026 (see section 16).

10.2 Private credit and structured deals

Private credit now finances owners above the league caps. Apollo Sports Capital launched in Sep 2025 with a US$5bn target, lent £80mm to Nottingham Forest and took a majority of Atlético de Madrid at €2.5bn including debt (PitchBook). Apollo then agreed a US$2.6bn package of debt and equity with the Yankees in Aug 2026, leaving the Steinbrenner family in full control (Fortune, secondary). Ares raised US$3.7bn for its first sports, media and entertainment fund in 2022, and its second fund had a US$1bn first close against a US$2bn target in Jul 2025 (WealthManagement, secondary; Dakota, secondary), and CalPERS committed US$775mm to a Sixth Street sports fund in Nov 2025 (Bloomberg, secondary). Arctos's US$6.2bn Keystone fund finances general partners, not teams (PitchBook; see section 9).

Banks arrange the larger deals. JPMorgan has arranged more than US$10bn of sports financings since 2021, and Goldman Sachs and Citi run dedicated sports groups (Fortune, secondary). Exhibit 17 shows that the deals range from investment-grade notes to double-digit mezzanine.

Exhibit 17: Notable financings run from 5% media notes to 19% mezzanine

Sources: Fortune; The Esk, Man Utd; The Esk, Barcelona; MSGS 8-K; The Esk, Ares; Inside World Football; PitchBook; Bloomberg; Inside World Football; Fortune; Malay Mail. All secondary except the MSGS 8-K and PitchBook. Eagle Football size from Inside World Football (The Esk estimates about US$493mm of mezzanine); Everton figures differ across sources (£300mm to £350mm senior).

Rule of thumb (author's): North American team credit prices off the league; European club credit prices off the club's own media contract and its relegation risk.

10.3 European club finance

European clubs borrow on their own credit. Premier League clubs held £3.6bn of net debt in 2024/25 and lost £948mm before tax (Deloitte). Manchester United reported net debt of £749mm at Sep 30, 2025, plus about £447mm of transfer payables (The Esk, secondary). Four kinds of borrowing dominate:

• Media-rights notes. Barcelona's notes carry a first-priority claim on its LaLiga media revenue and a BBB rating from Morningstar DBRS, and they priced 202bps over the benchmark against 240bps on the prior issue (The Esk, secondary).
• Long-dated stadium debt. Tottenham's £851.7mm of borrowings are more than 90% fixed at an average 3.07% with an average maturity of 17.6 years (Tottenham Hotspur). Real Madrid borrowed €575mm over 30 years at no more than 2.5% for the Bernabéu in 2019 (SportsPro, secondary).
• Owner-level acquisition debt. RedBird refinanced AC Milan through Comvest Credit Partners in Jan 2026, repaying the Elliott vendor loan from its 2022 purchase; the amount was not disclosed (AC Milan). Oaktree, which had financed Inter's former owner Suning, took control of the club in May 2024 (Bloomberg, secondary).
• Rescue and hybrid capital. Eagle Football was reported to have defaulted on Ares's mezzanine loans in Oct 2025 and later entered UK administration; Michele Kang then took 87.78% of Lyon in Jun 2026 (The Esk, secondary; Inside World Football, secondary; see section 17).

Relegation is the main credit risk. KBRA rates Olympique Lyonnais's €320mm Groupama Stadium financing BBB+ and calls relegation the biggest credit variable in stadium deals (KBRA). Closed North American leagues carry no such risk.

New NFL and MLB stadiums now cost US$2–4bn, and the public share on recent deals ranges from about one-fifth to three-fifths of cost. Owners fund most of the rest and use the stadium as the anchor for surrounding real estate. Exhibit 18 compares the main projects.

Exhibit 18: The public share of new stadium cost ranges from about 20% to 60%

Sources: KCUR; The Stadium Business; Axios; Business Observer; The Stadium Business; Bond Buyer; SportsPro; Wikipedia. All secondary. Public share is author's arithmetic except the Chiefs (reported). Chiefs scope and figures differ across sources.

Tax-backed bonds carry the public share. Nashville's US$760mm stadium bonds are secured by a 1% hotel tax and stadium sales tax (Bond Buyer, secondary), and KBRA rates the senior lien AA− (KBRA). Kansas plans to sell its US$1.8bn of STAR bonds for the Chiefs, with Bank of America as lead bookrunner, about 10–12 months after Jan 8, 2026, and expects most of them to be tax-exempt (Bond Buyer, secondary). The Bears committed US$2bn of their own money to a site in Hammond, Indiana (Chicago Bears). Ohio's US$600mm contribution to the Browns faces litigation (Axios, secondary). DC hopes to approve the final RFK campus plan by year-end (The Stadium Business, secondary).

Owners use mixed-use districts to capture value beyond game days. The Braves budgeted US$452mm for the Battery Atlanta next to a US$622mm ballpark (Wikipedia, secondary), and Edmonton's C$613.7mm Rogers Place anchors a C$2.5bn downtown development (Wikipedia, secondary). The Chiefs' Kansas plan includes a district and headquarters (KCUR, secondary). Apollo is co-investing in the Ciudad del Deporte district beside Atlético's stadium (PitchBook). JPMorgan has arranged US$575mm for Atlanta's Centennial Yards and US$650mm of loans for Inter Miami's Miami Freedom Park (Fortune, secondary). The downside also shows up in credit: after teams left Oakland, the appraised value of the loan on a local Radisson in a commercial mortgage-backed securities pool fell 70%, from US$50mm to US$15mm (Academy Securities).

Naming rights are a small, steady line. Naming rights make up about 11% of NFL team sponsorship revenue (Sportico, secondary). In MLS, BMO pays LAFC US$100mm over 10 years (Sportico, secondary).

European football generates large revenue but little profit, and US and Gulf capital now controls a large share of its top clubs. Promotion and relegation, high wage ratios and multi-club structures add risk that closed US leagues do not carry, so some investors buy league-level media stakes or Formula 1 instead.

12.1 Economics of European football

Revenue keeps rising while losses persist. The European football market reached €40.2bn in 2024/25, up 6%, and the Big Five leagues earned €21.6bn of it (Deloitte). Premier League clubs earned £6.8bn, but wages took 65% of revenue and only eight clubs made an operating profit, down from 13 (Deloitte). Ligue 1 revenue fell 15% to €2.2bn after its media deal collapsed (Deloitte; see section 7). Across all top divisions, UEFA counts €28.6bn of club revenue and €1.1bn of pre-tax losses in 2024, with 53% of clubs profitable before tax (Football Benchmark). Deloitte expects Big Five growth to slow in 2025/26–2026/27 (Deloitte).

Promotion swings club values. The 2026 Championship play-off final was worth at least £205mm of extra revenue over three seasons to the winner, and about £365mm if it survives its first Premier League season (Deloitte).

12.2 US and Gulf ownership

US investors now control a large share of Europe's top clubs. About 40% of Big Five clubs are controlled by American investors in 2025-26, according to PitchBook (PitchBook). UEFA counted 29 controlling-stake sales in 2025, and North American investors made one-third of all top-flight takeovers (SportsPro, secondary, citing UEFA). Eleven Premier League clubs had US owners in 2025/26 (Sports Illustrated, secondary). Recent deals show the range:

• Liverpool. FSG sold about 38% to 1892 Holdings, led by Amit Bhatia with Jeff Bezos and the Saverin family office, at a reported US$7bn valuation, with an option to take control within 12 months (JOE, secondary).
• Chelsea. Clearlake, with 61.5%, was reported to be negotiating to buy out Todd Boehly and Mark Walter at a £5bn club valuation; no deal had been agreed by Aug 18, 2026 (Insider Sport, secondary).
• Everton and Crystal Palace. The Friedkin Group bought 98.8% of Everton in Dec 2024 (Sky Sports, secondary), and Woody Johnson bought Eagle Football's 43% of Palace for a reported £190mm in Jul 2025 (Sports Mole, secondary).

Gulf sovereign funds are shifting toward returns. PIF's 2026–2030 strategy emphasizes financial returns (Golf Channel, secondary). It owns about 85% of Newcastle and is discussing a minority sale and a securitization of commercial revenue (SportsPro, secondary). PIF has put more than US$5.3bn into LIV Golf since 2021 and plans to stop funding it after the 2026 season (SportsPro, secondary), and it sold 70% of Al-Hilal (Golf Channel, secondary). QIA takes passive stakes in US teams instead: it bought 5% of Monumental Sports at a US$4.05bn enterprise value in 2023 and more alongside Arctos at US$7.2bn in 2025 (Sportico, secondary). The NFL bars direct sovereign ownership (see section 6).

12.3 Multi-club ownership

Multi-club groups now own about half of Big Five clubs. About 48% of Big Five clubs belonged to multi-club operators in 2025-26, up from 41.7% a year earlier (PitchBook). UEFA counts 345 clubs that are part of multi-club ownership networks, on FY2024 data (Football Benchmark); a summary of the same report gives 122 (SportsPro, secondary), possibly for a narrower scope such as top divisions only. Exhibit 19 shows that the model has produced both the largest group and the two biggest failures.

Exhibit 19: Multi-club groups range from City Football Group to two collapses

Sources: City Football Group; Sportcal; City AM; Insider Sport; Sky Sports; Inside World Football; Insider Sport; The Esk. All secondary except City Football Group.

UEFA enforces its rules on a fixed date. UEFA found that Crystal Palace and Lyon breached its multi-club rule as at Mar 1, 2025 and moved Palace to the Conference League (UEFA). The Court of Arbitration for Sport dismissed Palace's appeal, holding that the rules give no flexibility to clubs that are non-compliant on the assessment date (Northridge Law, secondary). The next assessment date is Mar 1, 2027 (see section 21).

12.4 League-level private equity

CVC owns slices of league media income rather than clubs. Its deals buy a share of a league's media company for decades, and clubs spend the cash on infrastructure, debt and players. Exhibit 20 shows that the implied league values vary widely and that fan opposition stopped the Bundesliga deal.

Exhibit 20: League media stakes imply €7–24bn values, and fans blocked the Bundesliga deal

Sources: LaLiga; SportsPro, LaLiga; Inside World Football; OneFootball; SportsPro, DFL; SportsPro, CVC GSG. All secondary except LaLiga. LaLiga and DFL implied values are author's arithmetic; Ligue 1 implied value as reported.

The model extends beyond football. Global Sport Group also holds stakes in the Six Nations, Premiership Rugby, the WTA and Volleyball World, and CVC has invested about €4.6bn since 2018 (SportsPro, secondary).

12.5 Formula 1 and emerging assets

Formula 1 is a listed, debt-financed series with rising team values. Liberty Media's F1 earned US$3.873bn of revenue in 2025, up 14%, with adjusted OIBDA of US$946mm, and paid US$1.400bn to teams (Liberty Media). F1 carries US$3.350bn of senior loans, and Liberty bought 84% of MotoGP owner Dorna at a €4.2bn enterprise value in Jul 2025 (Liberty Media; MotoGP.com). F1 teams averaged US$3.6bn in value in 2025, led by Ferrari at US$6.5bn (Forbes); Sportico puts the average at US$3.42bn (Sportico via Daily Sabah). Team stakes now trade often: Mercedes agreed a sale at about US$6bn, McLaren's buyout valued it at US$4.5bn (Forbes), and Woody Johnson bought a reported stake of more than US$500mm in Aston Martin at about US$3.5bn in Aug 2026 (PlanetF1, secondary).

Women's teams are a small but fast-rising asset. Forbes valued 25 women's teams at US$5.6bn combined in Dec 2025, led by the New York Liberty at US$400mm (Forbes). Michele Kang's Washington Spirit rose to US$130mm from US$35mm at her 2022 purchase (Forbes). The Women's Super League grew revenue 39% to £90mm in 2024/25, still small next to the men's game (Deloitte). WNBA and NWSL values and expansion fees appear in sections 3 and 8.

Players take about half of league revenue, owners keep operating income worth about 2% of team value a year, and buyers price teams on revenue growth rather than on profit. Section 4 explains where revenue comes from; this section follows where it goes.

Exhibit 21: North American teams earn 19–30% operating margins; Premier League clubs earn about 4%

Sources: league revenue from Sportico (NFL team revenue, secondary), Sportico (NBA, secondary), NHL (NHL, Bettman, 2025-26; Front Office Sports, secondary, reports a record US$7bn in mixed currency for 2024-25), Forbes (MLB 2024, secondary) and Deloitte (Premier League); player share from NFLPA (secondary), Sportico and Deloitte; operating income from Forbes Most Profitable Teams 2026 (EBITDA-based). Revenue per team for North America is the Forbes average value divided by the Forbes revenue multiple from the lists for the same season (NFL 2025, NBA 2025, NHL 2025, MLB 2026, which reflects 2025 revenue). Premier League figures are league totals divided by 20. Per-team revenue, margin and value ÷ operating income are author's arithmetic.

Players are the largest profit pool. At a 48% share, NFL players receive about US$10.7bn of the US$22.2bn teams generated in 2024, while combined team operating income was about US$4.1bn (author's arithmetic, Exhibit 21). English football tilts further toward players: Premier League wages of £4.4bn compare with operating profit of £263mm across all 20 clubs, and only eight clubs made an operating profit in 2024/25 (Deloitte).

Profit concentrates in the largest markets. The Dallas Cowboys earned US$629mm of operating income, about five times the NFL average, and the 20 most profitable teams worldwide earned US$4.5bn combined (Forbes).

Broadcasters and lenders hold fixed claims ahead of owners. Media partners pay set annual fees under multi-year contracts (section 7), and lenders earn interest within league debt limits (section 10), so the owner holds the residual after players, debt service and operating costs.

Buyers pay for growth, not current profit. Forbes revenue multiples run from 5.6x for European clubs (Forbes) to 13.4x for the NFL, and the Seahawks sold at 14.6x revenue (Forbes). On operating income, the 2025 NFL average traded at about 56x; at the 2026 average of US$9.5bn the multiple is about 75x if operating income is held at its 2024 level (author's arithmetic). Tax lowers the effective price because buyers amortize nearly the whole purchase price over 15 years (section 16), and section 8.4 covers control premiums and minority discounts.

Rule of thumb (author's): at NFL and NBA multiples, operating income yields about 2% of value a year before debt service, capital spending and tax, so any return above that comes from appreciation.

Published studies show team values compounding at 13–15% a year, ahead of public equities, but every series uses appraised values rather than realized prices, and the strongest claims come from managers that raise sports capital. Cash yields are low and every exit needs league approval, so investors realize returns mainly through appreciation at sale.

Exhibit 22: Value-based studies show 13–15% a year; realized and fund-level evidence is thin

Sources: Ares; Penn Mutual AM (secondary, citing RASFI); Avantis Investors; Sportico; Forbes 2010 and Forbes 2025; Sportico (secondary); Sportico (secondary). Arctos fund IRR and multiples are not disclosed.

The studies agree on direction but not on benchmark. Avantis finds that most top teams beat the S&P 500 but lost to a value and profitability stock strategy, and its Lakers case returned 11.5% a year from 1979, against 12.2% for the S&P 500 (Avantis). Weak teams can lag for years: the Miami Marlins, bought for US$1.2bn in 2017, sold a minority stake at US$1.55bn in 2025, about 29% in total, and ranked last in every Sportico MLB edition (Sportico, secondary).

Cash yield is low and largely unobservable. Operating income equals about 1.8% of the 2025 Forbes average value in the NFL, 2.1% in the NBA and 3.4% in the NHL (author's arithmetic from Exhibit 21). Teams do not publish distributions, which is why Avantis excludes dividends from its figures (Avantis).

Low correlation partly reflects smoothing. The Ares correlation of −0.01 with equities uses annual appraised values, and Avantis notes that infrequent valuation understates volatility (Avantis).

Liquidity is the binding constraint. League rules set minimum holds of six years for NFL funds and five years in the NHL and require owner approval for every transfer (section 6). Exits run through three channels: a control sale that carries minority holders along, as with Dyal's Suns stake; a sale to another approved fund or secondaries buyer, the business KKR bought with Arctos (section 9.3); or, for league-level holdings, an IPO, which CVC plans for its Global Sport Group within about three years (SportsPro, secondary). Unanswered questions about exits slowed NFL private equity adoption (Front Office Sports, secondary). Ares's semi-liquid fund offers quarterly redemptions on assets that rarely trade (WealthManagement, secondary).

The main risks are concentration risks. A team depends on one league's media contracts, one labor agreement and one venue, and section 17 shows each failing. European clubs also carry relegation risk, which KBRA names as the biggest credit variable in stadium financings (KBRA).

North American leagues are closed: owners control the supply of teams, pool national revenue and bargain collectively with players, and MLS clubs trade at 8.9x revenue against 5.6x for European clubs (Forbes). European football is open: promotion lets any club reach the top tier, and relegation can take any club out of it.

Owners price new supply. The NHL charged US$1.2bn for Utah (Wikipedia, secondary), and NBA expansion estimates run to US$7–10bn per team, with 23 of 30 votes needed (Flashscore, secondary). Section 8.3 lists fees. In English football the entry ticket is sporting: the 2026 Championship play-off final was worth at least £205mm over three seasons to the winner (Deloitte).

Exhibit 23: Closed leagues control supply and costs; the Premier League has neither closed entry nor a salary cap

Sources: team counts from Forbes and Sportico lists (section 3); fees from Wikipedia, Wikipedia, Wikipedia (all secondary) and Flashscore (secondary); costs from NBA, Sportico (secondary), Jackson Lewis, Cronkite News (secondary) and Premier League; media from TheWrap, Sportcal, Axios, Awful Announcing, Front Office Sports, Sportico and SportsPro (all secondary).

Players' unions hold the largest claim on revenue. They set the timetable for cost control, and where no cap exists payrolls diverge: MLB's 2026 payrolls ran from US$328mm for the Mets to US$80mm for the Guardians (Sportico, secondary).

A few media buyers set the pace of renewals. Disney, NBCU, Amazon, Fox, Paramount, Netflix and Apple hold most national rights (section 7). Fox will not renegotiate its NFL deal before the 2029 opt-out, and NFL talks with Paramount paused in Aug 2026 (Sports Media Watch, secondary).

Cities compete for teams, and teams use relocation to raise public money. Kansas plans US$1.8bn of STAR bonds for a Chiefs stadium (Bond Buyer, secondary), the Athletics left Oakland for Las Vegas with up to US$380mm of public funds (CBS Sacramento, secondary), and the Bears are advancing a site in Hammond, Indiana (Chicago Bears). Section 11 covers venue finance.

Approved institutional capital is concentrated. Only four approved firms had invested in NFL teams by Sep 2026 (Front Office Sports, secondary), and Arctos is the only firm approved for multi-team ownership in all five major US leagues (KKR).

Substitutes for investors are widening. Sportico's 2025 lists show F1 team values up 48% and WNBA values up 180%, against 7% for MLB (Sportico), and European clubs offer lower multiples with promotion and relegation risk attached (section 12).

The US tax treatment that supports buyer economics survived its first serious challenge in 2025, while the active regulatory changes sit in English football, European competition law, college sports and MLB labor. Sections 6 and 12 cover ownership and multi-club rules.

Tax: the 15-year write-off survived. Since 2004, buyers can amortize about 100% of a franchise purchase price over 15 years under Section 197, replacing the earlier rule that limited player-contract write-offs to 50% over five years (SABR, secondary). On a purchase of about US$700mm, such as the Astros in 2011, that creates about US$46.7mm of deductions a year (SABR, secondary). The House draft of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act would have cut the amortizable amount to 50% of basis (Proskauer), but the final law signed Jul 4, 2025 excluded the limit (Withers) and left carried interest unchanged (Kirkland).

Antitrust: courts are testing league control. A jury awarded US$4.7bn (US$14.1bn trebled) against the NFL over Sunday Ticket in Jun 2024, and the judge threw out the award in Aug 2024 (NPR, secondary). The Ninth Circuit heard the appeal on Mar 9, 2026 and has not ruled (Courthouse News, secondary). In Europe, the EU Court of Justice held on Dec 21, 2023 that FIFA and UEFA prior-authorization rules breached competition law (Bird & Bird). Germany's Bundeskartellamt closed its review of the 50+1 rule in Aug 2026, finding it permissible if applied consistently (Bundeskartellamt).

English football now has a statutory regulator. The Independent Football Regulator gained powers over current owners on Dec 12, 2025, including fines and forced sales, and new owners have needed its approval since May 2026 (Sky Sports, secondary). The Premier League adds a Squad Cost Ratio of 85% from 2026/27 (Premier League) and a front-of-shirt betting sponsor ban that left 11 clubs facing about £80mm of lost revenue (SportsPro, secondary). An independent commission was reported in late Sep 2026 to have found against Manchester City on almost all of the 115 financial charges; City may appeal, and sanctions have not been set (NBC News, secondary). UEFA fined 14 clubs under its €60mm three-year loss limit and 70% squad cost rule, led by Strasbourg at €25mm (Inside World Football, secondary).

College sports now pay athletes. The House v. NCAA settlement allows revenue sharing of up to US$20.5mm per school in 2025-26 (CBS Sports, secondary). The Senate passed the Protect College Sports Act 77–22 on Sep 28, 2026, which would ban super leagues and cap conferences at 20 schools (CBS Sports, secondary).

Labor: MLB is the near-term risk. Owners have proposed baseball's first salary cap since 1994, at US$245mm with a US$171mm floor, and the minimum salary would rise from US$780,000 to US$1mm (Sportico, secondary). The interim union head calls a cap non-negotiable, and owners have offered to share local TV rights if one is adopted (Fox News, secondary). The last lockout began Dec 1, 2021 and lasted three months and eight days (Sportico, secondary), and Yankee Stadium bonds hold reserves to cover debt service through a 2027 lockout (Sportico, secondary).

Exhibit 24: MLB labor and English licensing are the next dated tests

Sources: Sportico (secondary); Jackson Lewis; WNBA; Cronkite News (secondary); Skadden; UEFA; The Esk (secondary); Courthouse News (secondary); CBS Sports (secondary); Withers.

Failures in sports investing cluster in four places: media counterparties, owner-level leverage, politics and governance, and outside shocks. In most episodes the team survived and changed hands, and owners, lenders and counterparties absorbed the losses.

Exhibit 25: Teams survive their failures; owners, lenders and counterparties absorb the losses

Sources (all secondary unless marked): NewscastStudio; MLB Trade Rumors; Broadcast; Deloitte (tier 2); SportsPro; Bloomberg; SportsPro; Inside World Football; UEFA (tier 1); Al Jazeera; Malay Mail; Forbes; SportsPro on Deloitte; CBS Sports; CBS Sports; Wikipedia; CBS Sacramento; Academy Securities.

Counterparty failure hits revenue that owners treated as fixed. Regional sports networks paid guaranteed fees until their owner failed, and MLB's in-house replacement pays less guaranteed revenue (MLB Trade Rumors, secondary). France shows the same risk at league level: after two broadcasters left, the league's own streaming service distributed about €142mm in 2025/26, against about €500mm from traditional broadcasters (SportsPro, secondary). Section 7.2 covers the local-TV collapse.

Leverage fails at the holding company, not the league. 777 Partners and Eagle Football borrowed above their clubs, and when they failed the clubs went to new owners: Genoa to Dan Șucu and Lyon to Michele Kang, who bought 87.78% (The Esk, secondary; Inside World Football, secondary).

Rules act faster than courts. UEFA moved Crystal Palace down to the Conference League because one owner had decisive influence over Palace and Lyon on the assessment date (UEFA), while the criminal case against 777's co-founder had no trial date as of Jul 1, 2026 (The Esk, secondary).

Rule of thumb (author's): review the owner's capital structure and the media counterparty before the team itself, because those are where past losses began.

Seven groups share the economics of professional sports: leagues set the rules and pool national revenue, control owners hold the franchises, and five groups of capital providers and buyers fund or pay for the product. Exhibit 26 maps them; Exhibits 27–33 profile the leading names in each.

Exhibit 26: Seven groups supply capital to or take revenue from professional sports

Sources: Sportico (secondary); Wikipedia (secondary); KKR/Business Wire; SportsPro (secondary); Fortune (secondary); Sportcal (secondary); Football Benchmark on UEFA.

18.1 Leagues and governing bodies

Leagues are the gatekeepers: each decides who may own a stake, how much a fund may hold and how much a team may borrow (see section 6). The NFL remains the most restrictive, at 10% per team (Front Office Sports, secondary).

Exhibit 27: The NFL earns the most and caps institutions the tightest

Sources: Sportico, TheWrap, PE Wire, Front Office Sports, Bloomberg, Forbes, Front Office Sports, Axios, SportsPro, Tifosy, Awful Announcing, Sky Sports, SportsPro (all secondary); NHL.com; NHL.com; Deloitte; Premier League; UEFA.

Economics. Leagues earn by selling national rights collectively and passing most of the money to teams: national distribution made up 62% of NFL team revenue in 2024 (Sportico, secondary). They also borrow for members: the NFL's league-wide program issued US$1.45bn of bonds rated A by Fitch, and the MLB Trust securitization had more than US$1.9bn outstanding (Sportico citing Fitch, secondary; Sportico citing Fitch, secondary).

18.2 Control owners and ownership groups

Control owners are mostly wealthy individuals and families, and their assets are repricing fast. The Lakers majority at US$12.5bn and the Seahawks at US$9.612bn set the US and NFL records within weeks of each other (see section 8).

Exhibit 28: Six control owners span record buyers, long-term families and transatlantic groups

Sources: Forbes via Yahoo; Forbes; Sports Illustrated; Wikipedia; CBS Sports; Forbes; Fortune; JOE; SportsPro. All except Forbes are secondary.

Economics. Owners earn modest operating income relative to asset value and rely on appreciation at sale. Average operating income was US$127mm for NFL teams, US$113mm for NBA teams and US$74mm for NHL teams (Forbes, 2024 season data). US buyers can amortize about 100% of the purchase price over 15 years, and the July 2025 tax law dropped a proposed 50% limit (Withers). Leagues cap leverage: an NFL club may carry US$700mm of debt, and a new buyer up to US$1.5bn (section 10).

18.3 Sports-focused funds

A handful of US managers hold most institutional team equity, and the largest of them now sits inside a global asset manager. KKR bought Arctos for US$1.4bn plus an earnout of up to US$550mm and closed in May 2026 (KKR/Business Wire).

Exhibit 29: Arctos leads on breadth; Sixth Street, Ares and Apollo pair equity with credit

Sources: KKR/Business Wire; Wikipedia; Sportico; Barca Blaugranes; Ares/Business Wire; WealthManagement; PitchBook; Dakota; Sportico; SportsPro. All except Business Wire and PitchBook are secondary.

Economics. Funds earn appreciation on passive stakes, and league rules limit concentration: an NFL-approved fund needs US$2bn of commitments and may put no more than 20% of its assets into one team (Akin Gump). Fund-level returns are not disclosed. The one documented exit is Dyal HomeCourt's Phoenix Suns stake, bought at a US$1.55bn valuation and sold at US$4bn about 18 months later, a 158% gain (Sportico, secondary).

18.4 Sovereign, pension and strategic investors

Sovereign capital owns clubs directly in Europe but reaches US teams mainly through funds, because the NFL bars direct sovereign ownership and caps a sovereign at 7.5% of an approved fund (Front Office Sports, secondary). US pensions take the same route as limited partners.

Exhibit 30: Gulf sovereigns hold direct stakes; pensions commit through managers

Sources: SportsPro; Golf Channel; Sportico; The Race; PitchBook; Bloomberg; Dakota; BNN Bloomberg; Daily Faceoff. All except PitchBook are secondary.

Economics. Sovereign owners are shifting toward financial return: PIF's 2026–2030 strategy emphasizes returns, and Newcastle is discussing a minority sale and a securitization of commercial revenue (Golf Channel, secondary; SportsPro, secondary).

18.5 Lenders

Banks arrange most investment-grade sports debt, while private credit funds take the riskier layers. JPMorgan alone has arranged more than US$10bn of sports financings since 2021 (Fortune, secondary).

Exhibit 31: Secured club paper prices near 5%; mezzanine lending ran above 16%

Sources: Fortune; MSGS 8-K; The Esk; The Esk; Bond Buyer; Fortune; The Esk; Inside World Football; SportsPro. All except the MSGS 8-K are secondary.

Economics. Lenders price off the quality of contracted media revenue. Fitch put league leverage at 1.8x for MLB, 2.0x for the NFL and 2.7x for the NBA, and the MLB Trust is secured on rights fees from investment-grade broadcasters (Sportico citing Fitch, secondary). Club-level secured paper at Barcelona and Manchester United priced near 5% in 2026, against 16–19.4% on Ares's mezzanine loans to Eagle Football (Exhibit 31).

18.6 Media partners

Media partners pay the largest single revenue line in most leagues, and in the US the same few companies hold rights across several leagues. Disney's new NBA fee of about US$2.6bn a year is 73% above its prior rate (Sportcal, secondary).

Exhibit 32: Six partners anchor the US and European rights markets

Sources: NBC News; Sportcal; Axios; SportsPro; SportsPro; Sports Media Watch; SportsPro; Inside World Football; Broadcast. All secondary.

Economics. Partners recoup fees through advertising and subscriptions; the NBA's partners sold US$2.1bn of advertising in the first season of the new deals (Sportico, secondary). Local TV is the weak spot: Main Street Sports Group, formerly Diamond, announced in Apr 2026 that it would cease operations after the 2025-26 NBA regular season and NHL first round (see section 7).

18.7 Multi-club groups

Multi-club operators own about 48% of Big Five league clubs in 2025-26, and two of the sector's largest failures came from such groups (PitchBook).

Exhibit 33: Sovereign- and corporate-backed networks endure; two leveraged groups have collapsed

Sources: City Football Group; Sportcal; PitchBook; City AM; Insider Sport; Sky Sports; The Esk; Inside World Football; Insider Sport. All except City Football Group and PitchBook are secondary.

Economics. A network earns what its clubs earn, but UEFA limits how related clubs can compete. Crystal Palace was moved to the Conference League in Jul 2025 because Eagle Football had "decisive influence" over both Palace and Lyon on the Mar 1 assessment date (UEFA).

Six trends are reshaping how institutional capital meets sports, and together they point to more capital, more structure and more regulation at once.

• Leagues are loosening institutional limits at different speeds. MLB raised its single-firm cap to 20% in summer 2026, and the NBA now lets a firm co-invest with its executives (Front Office Sports, secondary; Bloomberg via Yahoo, secondary). The NFL is holding at 10% (Front Office Sports, secondary).
• Sports managers are being absorbed into large platforms. KKR bought Arctos, Apollo draws on Athene's permanent capital and CVC plans an IPO or sale of its Global Sport Group within about three years (see section 9; SportsPro, secondary).
• Media money is shifting from cable bundles to national streaming deals. The NFL's early renegotiations stalled in Aug 2026, leaving its 2029-30 opt-out as the next reset (Sports Media Watch, secondary). Locally, MLB produces broadcasts for 15 teams in 2026 after the regional network collapse (SportsPro, secondary).
• Private credit is moving into sports at both ends of the risk range. Barcelona's media notes were more than 200% oversubscribed, while Eagle Football and 777 Partners show the losses at the leveraged end (see sections 10 and 17; The Esk, secondary).
• European regulation is tightening on owners and costs. The UK regulator opens licensing in Nov 2026, the Premier League's 85% squad cost ratio starts in 2026/27, and UEFA fined 14 clubs under its financial rules in mid-2026 (Skadden; Premier League; Inside World Football, secondary).
• Women's sports are repricing fastest from a small base. Forbes put the average WNBA team at US$414mm in 2026, up 52%, and the new WNBA labor deal lifts the salary cap to US$7mm from US$1.5mm (Forbes; SportsPro, secondary).

Outlook. Growth looks uneven by region. Deloitte projects slowing Big Five growth through 2026/27, with a possible plateau in some markets (Deloitte). In North America the main near-term risk to cash flow is labor: owners have proposed MLB's first salary cap since 1994 ahead of the Dec 1, 2026 expiry (Sportico, secondary).

Eight indicators capture most of what moves institutional sports assets: values, multiples, deal prices, market size, cost ratios, ownership rules and network concentration.

Exhibit 34: Valuation lists and league rule changes are the most frequent signals

Sources: as listed in the table. "Expected" dates follow each publisher's prior release month.

The next six months bring three kinds of signposts: deal approvals (Lakers, Falcons, Chelsea), labor and media deadlines (the MLB agreement, NHL US rights) and European licensing dates.

Exhibit 35: The MLB labor deadline and UK licensing window dominate Oct 2026–Mar 2027

Sources: as listed in the table. Dates marked "(expected)" are inferred from prior-year timing or reported windows.

Exhibit 36 lists the organizations that recur across the primer, grouped as in section 18; scale measures differ because each group discloses different figures.

Exhibit 36: Leagues set the rules, a few managers supply most institutional capital and sovereigns own clubs directly in Europe

Sources: as cited in Exhibits 26–33 (section 18), principally Sportico, Forbes, KKR, SportsPro, Fortune, UEFA and Inside World Football. Most deal figures are secondary.

50+1

German rule that keeps a majority of club votes with members (section 6).

Aggregate fund cap

Limit on the share of one team that all funds together may own; 10% in the NFL, 30% in the NBA, NHL and MLS (section 6).

Apron

NBA payroll threshold above the tax line that triggers roster restrictions.

Basketball related income (BRI)

The NBA revenue pool from which players receive 51% (section 4).

Blind trust

Structure that removes an owner's decisive influence over a club to meet UEFA multi-club rules (section 6).

Collective bargaining agreement (CBA)

League-union contract that sets the player share, cap and labor calendar (section 16).

Control premium

Amount a control buyer pays above a list or minority price (section 8).

Decisive influence

UEFA test of common control between clubs, applied on Mar 1 (section 6).

Earnout

Deferred price paid if targets are met, such as up to US$550mm in KKR–Arctos (section 9).

Escrow

Share of player salaries withheld to keep pay at the agreed revenue split (section 4).

Expansion fee

Price a new team pays to join a closed league (section 8).

GP financing

Lending to fund managers rather than teams, as in Arctos's Keystone fund (section 9).

Hockey related revenue (HRR)

The NHL revenue pool used to set player pay.

Independent Football Regulator (IFR)

English statutory regulator that approves owners and licenses clubs (section 16).

League credit facility

Central borrowing vehicle that lends to teams against national media revenue (section 10).

Media kicker

NFL CBA term that lifts the player share to 48.8% as media revenue grows (section 4).

Media-rights notes

Bonds secured on a club's or league's media income (section 10).

Mezzanine

Subordinated, high-coupon debt; Ares's loans to Eagle Football ran at 16–19.4% (section 10).

Minority discount

Price reduction for a stake without control; recent NFL stakes show little (section 8).

Opt-out

Right to end a media contract early; most NFL partners have one after 2029-30 (section 7).

PILOT bonds

Stadium bonds repaid from payments in lieu of taxes (section 10).

Preferred equity

Equity ranking ahead of common, with a fixed return; barred for NFL funds (section 6).

Regional sports network (RSN)

Cable channel holding local team rights; the model collapsed with Diamond Sports (section 7).

Revenue participation

Purchase of a share of a club's income rather than its equity (section 9).

Secondaries

Purchases of existing fund or team stakes from current holders (section 9).

Securitization

Bonds backed by a pool of contracted revenue, such as the MLB Trust (section 10).

Semi-liquid fund

Fund offering periodic redemptions on illiquid assets (section 14).

Sovereign wealth fund

State investment fund; the NFL caps one at 7.5% of an approved fund (section 6).

STAR bonds

Kansas sales-tax revenue bonds proposed for a Chiefs stadium (section 11).

Squad Cost Ratio

Premier League limit on squad costs as a share of revenue (section 6).

Every linked source in the primer, grouped by the section where it first appears. Sources marked "secondary" in the text are trade press or blogs.

1. The short version

• NFL — sports.yahoo.com/articles/nfl-most-valuable-teams-2026-103000891.html
• NBA — forbes.com/sites/justinteitelbaum/2025/10/23/the-most-valuable-nba-tea
• MLB — forbes.com/sites/justinteitelbaum/2026/03/20/baseballs-most-valuable-t
• NHL — forbes.com/sites/justinteitelbaum/2025/12/11/the-nhls-most-valuable-te
• MLS — hudsonriverblue.com/forbes-values-new-york-city-fc-1-billion-mls-inter
• WNBA — forbes.com/sites/brettknight/2026/05/07/the-wnbas-most-valuable-teams-
• soccer — forbes.com/sites/justinteitelbaum/2026/05/29/the-worlds-most-valuable-
• Sportico — sportico.com/leagues/football/2026/nfl-2025-national-revenue-per-team-
• Sportico — sportico.com/leagues/basketball/2025/nba-player-salaries-cut-escrow-sy
• Forbes — forbes.com/sites/maurybrown/2025/01/27/mlb-revenues-hit-record-121-bil
• NHL — nhl.com/news/commissioner-gary-bettman-says-nhl-revenue-is-growing-ahe
• Deloitte — deloitte.com/global/en/industries/telecom-media-entertainment/perspect
• Deloitte — deloitte.com/uk/en/about/press-room/european-football-revenues-surpass
• Front Office Sports — frontofficesports.com/article/nfl-private-equity-mlb-nba/
• Front Office Sports — frontofficesports.com/article/mlb-raises-private-equity-ownership-limi
• Front Office Sports — frontofficesports.com/the-nbas-expanding-private-equity-footprint/
• PE Insights — pe-insights.com/private-equity-deals-are-coming-to-the-nhl/
• Akin Gump — akingump.com/en/insights/alerts/institutional-investments-in-sports-fu
• TheWrap — thewrap.com/nfl-commissioner-media-rights-deals-opt-out-clause-renegot
• NBC News — nbcnews.com/business/media/espn-closes-deal-nfl-network-rights-redzone
• Sportcal — sportcal.com/features/deal-focus-nba-completes-11-year-rights-deals-wi
• Axios — axios.com/2025/11/20/mlb-espn-netflix-nbc-rights-deal
• Awful Announcing — awfulannouncing.com/nhl/gary-bettman-media-rights-negotiations-espn-tn
• Front Office Sports — frontofficesports.com/mls-folding-its-season-pass-shifting-all-games-t
• WFMD citing Front Office Sports — wfmd.com/2026/05/11/wnba-media-rights-deal-balloons-past-3-billion-aft
• SportsPro — sportspro.com/news/premier-league-tv-rights-deal-sky-tnt-amazon-2025-2
• NHL — nhl.com/news/nhl-rogers-announce-12-year-rights-deal
• Sportico — sportico.com/valuations/teams/2026/nfl-team-values-2026-dallas-cowboys
• Forbes — forbes.com/sites/justinteitelbaum/2025/08/28/the-nfls-most-valuable-te
• Wikipedia — en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Seahawks
• CBS Sports — cbssports.com/nba/news/lakers-sold-josh-kushner-bob-iger/
• Sportico — sportico.com/feature/how-nfl-teams-owners-make-money-1234795113/
• KKR — businesswire.com/news/home/20260204778743/en/KKR-to-Acquire-Arctos-Est
• KKR — businesswire.com/news/home/20260504956768/en/KKR-Closes-Acquisition-of
• Fortune — fortune.com/2026/08/11/apollo-inks-2-6-billion-financing-deal-with-ny-
• Ares — ares.com/us/news-and-insights/step-plate-getting-smart-role-sports-por
• Forbes — forbes.com/sites/brettknight/2026/01/09/the-worlds-most-profitable-spo
• Wikipedia — en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Street_Sports_Group
• SportsPro — sportspro.com/news/broadcast-ott/espn-mlb-tv-angels-tigers-local-right
• The Esk — theesk.org/2025/10/28/the-analysis-series-ares-management-corporation-
• Inside World Football — insideworldfootball.com/2026/07/23/textor-sues-kang-for-400m-over-lyon
• Sportico — sportico.com/law/analysis/2026/mlb-lockout-looming-legal-issues-123493

2. Units and vocabulary

• Sportico — sportico.com/business/team-sales/2025/monumental-wizards-qatar-arctos-
• PitchBook — pitchbook.com/news/articles/apollo-kicks-off-5b-sports-fund-with-major
• Wikipedia — en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Mammoth
• Sportico — sportico.com/valuations/teams/2025/nba-team-values-2025-warriors-laker
• Withers — withersworldwide.com/en-gb/insight/read/from-sidelines-to-bottom-lines
• Peterka Partners — blog.peterkapartners.com/further-development-of-uefa-multi-club-owners
• Premier League — premierleague.com/en/news/4468470/premier-league-statement-new-financi

3. Industry definition and size

• Akerman — akerman.com/en/perspectives/the-ncaa-house-settlement-one-year-later.h
• NWSL — forbes.com/sites/brettknight/2025/06/02/the-nwsls-most-valuable-teams-
• 2010 — forbes.com/2010/08/25/most-valuable-nfl-teams-business-sports-football
• 2015 — forbes.com/sites/mikeozanian/2015/09/14/the-most-valuable-teams-in-the
• 2020 — forbes.com/sites/forbespr/2020/09/10/forbes-releases-23rd-annual-nfl-t
• Sportico — sportico.com/valuations/teams/2022/sports-team-valuations-history-nfl-
• Statista — statista.com/statistics/193442/average-franchise-value-in-the-nba-sinc
• MLB 2026 — baseball.realgm.com/wiretap/60781/MLB-Average-Franchise-Value-Rises-12
• soccer 2026 — bleacherreport.com/articles/25421067-real-madrid-barcelona-headline-sp
• Wikipedia — en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Celtics

4. How it works: where team value comes from

• Bleacher Report — bleacherreport.com/articles/25456995-nfl-revenue-2025-revealed-teams-m
• Sportico — sportico.com/leagues/baseball/2025/los-angeles-dodgers-revenue-billion
• Sportico — sportico.com/business/sponsorship/2025/nfl-sponsorships-team-revenue-2
• Forbes — forbes.com/sites/maurybrown/2025/10/28/mlb-record-sponsorship-revenues
• Sportcal — sportcal.com/comment/how-the-big-four-american-sports-leagues-have-pro
• Wikipedia — en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Football_League_Players_Association
• Wikipedia — en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truist_Park
• KCUR — kcur.org/sports/2026-01-05/chiefs-move-kansas-cost-tax-incentives-star
• MLSsoccer.com — mlssoccer.com/news/sportico-mls-team-values-continue-to-climb
• Sportico citing Fitch — sportico.com/leagues/football/2024/nfl-debt-fitch-ratings-1234772992/
• ESPN — espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/48055711/nfl-salary-cap-hits-new-milestone-301
• NBA — pr.nba.com/2026-27-salary-cap/
• Sportico — sportico.com/leagues/hockey/2026/nhl-escrow-rebate-record-million-1234
• Front Office Sports — frontofficesports.com/nhl-skates-into-season-with-record-revenue-risin

5. Buyers and demand drivers

• Front Office Sports — frontofficesports.com/pif-other-sovereign-wealth-funds-now-have-entry-
• Bloomberg — bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-11-12/calpers-raises-sports-bet-with-
• CNBC — cnbc.com/2025/10/22/nfl-sale-minority-stake-giants-koch.html
• Flashscore — flashscore.com/news/nba-moves-closer-to-las-vegas-and-seattle-expansio
• SABR — sabr.org/journal/article/the-roster-depreciation-allowance-how-major-l
• NBA — pr.nba.com/nba-board-of-governors-potential-expansion-las-vegas-seattl
• Sports Media Watch — sportsmediawatch.com/2026/08/nfl-paramount-negotiations-pause-chance-e
• Otro — businesswire.com/news/home/20260203296133/en/Otro-Capital-Closes-Overs
• Dakota — dakota.com/resources/blog/the-most-active-private-equity-firms-in-spor
• The Esk — theesk.org/2026/06/16/the-analysis-series-manchester-united-plc-debt-s
• Wikipedia — en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland_Trail_Blazers

6. League ownership rules

• Private Equity Wire — privateequitywire.co.uk/nfl-to-maintain-10-pe-ownership-cap-despite-ml
• SportsAcquisition — sportsacquisition.com/post/team-ownership-rules-by-league
• Sportico via Yahoo — sports.yahoo.com/nwsl-owners-private-equity-rules-213750714.html
• Sky Sports — skysports.com/football/news/11095/13479481/independent-football-regula
• Bundeskartellamt — bundeskartellamt.de/SharedDocs/Meldung/EN/Pressemitteilungen/2026/08_1
• Front Office Sports — frontofficesports.com/patriots-become-fourth-nfl-team-to-add-private-e
• Front Office Sports — frontofficesports.com/slow-burn-the-nfls-private-equity-era-so-far/
• Hoodline — hoodline.com/2026/08/arctos-deal-values-atlanta-falcons-at-record-10-6
• Sky Sports — skysports.com/football/news/13409938/crystal-palace-to-play-in-confere
• Bloomberg via Yahoo Finance — finance.yahoo.com/media-advertising/articles/nba-paves-way-lakers-deal
• Skadden — skadden.com/insights/publications/2026/04/englands-new-independent-foo
• Lewis Silkin — lewissilkin.com/insights/2026/09/09/the-ifr-licensing-regime-what-club

7. Media rights

• Inside World Football — insideworldfootball.com/2025/12/01/laliga-closes-e6bn-domestic-tv-righ
• SportsPro — sportspro.com/news/broadcast-ott/media-rights/bundesliga-sky-dazn-dfl-
• SportsPro — sportspro.com/analysis/insights/premier-league-laliga-bundesliga-serie
• SportsPro — sportspro.com/news/broadcast-ott/nfl-cbs-paramount-media-rights-price-
• NewscastStudio — newscaststudio.com/2026/04/06/main-street-sports-group-to-cease-operat
• MLB Trade Rumors — mlbtraderumors.com/2026/01/nine-teams-terminate-contracts-with-main-st
• Fox News — foxnews.com/sports/inside-mlb-cba-negotiations-manfred-players-union-e
• Wikipedia — en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NFL_Network
• Deadline — deadline.com/2026/05/netflix-adds-nfl-games-league-rights-extension-12
• Axios — axios.com/2025/10/17/apple-tv-f1-broadcast-rights-deal-austin-race
• SportsPro — sportspro.com/analysis/finance-investment/premier-league-2026-27-seaso
• UEFA Circular 48/2026 — editorial.uefa.com/resources/02a7-211827b73041-d7386ee4869f-1000/20260
• SportsPro — sportspro.com/features/decision-makers/champions-league-tv-rights-spon
• Sportico — sportico.com/leagues/soccer/2023/serie-a-domestic-media-deal-dazn-sky-
• SportsPro — sportspro.com/news/ligue-1-plus-streaming-service-subscribers-cost-ben
• Inside World Football — insideworldfootball.com/2022/03/29/french-clubs-agree-e1-5bn-cvc-stake
• OneFootball — onefootball.com/en/news/cvc-cuts-valuation-of-its-lfp-media-stake-amid

8. Transactions

• Forbes — forbes.com/sites/tylerroush/2026/08/12/billionaire-josh-kushner-former
• CBS Sports summarizing Sportico — cbssports.com/nfl/news/nfl-team-valuations-for-2026-cowboys/
• Wikipedia — en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Commanders
• Padres — en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Diego_Padres
• Orioles — en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimore_Orioles
• Rays — en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tampa_Bay_Rays
• Yahoo Sports — sports.yahoo.com/mlb/article/how-the-los-angeles-angels-4b-sale-compar
• Sportico — sportico.com/business/finance/2025/2025-sports-team-values-wnba-f1-mlb
• Sportico — sportico.com/business/finance/2025/nfl-private-equity-growth-sales-fut
• NBC News — nbcnews.com/sports/nfl/nfl-approves-sale-minority-stake-philadelphia-e
• Slate — slate.com/business/2024/12/nfl-eagles-valuation-minority-stake-buffalo
• Sportcal — sportcal.com/news/nfl-approves-minority-stake-sales-for-giants-49ers-p
• JOE — joe.co.uk/sport/liverpool-stake-bezos-1892-holdings-38-per-cent-543690
• Wikipedia — en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WNBA_expansion
• San Diego FC — en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Diego_FC
• Hoodline — hoodline.com/2026/08/louisville-s-nwsl-club-hunts-cash-as-league-value
• Sportico — sportico.com/business/team-sales/2026/miami-marlins-ownership-stake-va

9. Sports funds and institutional investors

• Malay Mail — malaymail.com/amp/news/sports/2022/05/20/real-madrid-sign-360m-bernabe
• Barca Blaugranes — barcablaugranes.com/2022/7/22/23273953/fc-barcelona-confirm-sale-of-se
• SportsPro — sportspro.com/news/finance-investment/cvc-global-sport-group-pimco-kkr
• WealthManagement — wealthmanagement.com/alternative-investments/ares-launches-sports-and-
• Business Wire — businesswire.com/news/home/20240402225198/en/Arctos-Announces-Final-Cl
• Sportico — sportico.com/business/finance/2025/sixth-street-boston-celtics-san-fra
• Business Wire — businesswire.com/news/home/20220914005826/en/Ares-Management-Raises-$3
• PitchBook — pitchbook.com/news/articles/pro-sports-attract-private-credit-attentio
• SportsPro — sportspro.com/news/redbird-capital-partner-investments-all3-media-para
• PitchBook — pitchbook.com/news/articles/manchester-city-owner-nets-record-soccer-v
• SportsPro — sportspro.com/news/finance-investment/newcastle-united-saudi-pif-minor
• The Race — the-race.com/business/who-actually-owns-each-f1-team/
• Sportico — sportico.com/business/finance/2023/dyal-homecourt-nba-assets-123470990
• Sportico — sportico.com/business/finance/2025/arctos-tariffs-sports-teams-1234848
• PitchBook — pitchbook.com/news/articles/kkr-backed-sports-investor-collects-6-2-bi
• RACER — racer.com/2026/06/04/otro-waits-on-alpine-stake-sale-after-failing-to-
• Sportico — sportico.com/business/finance/2026/kkr-buys-arctos-price-sports-second
• Morgan Lewis — morganlewis.com/pubs/2025/07/sovereign-wealth-funds-in-the-sports-aren
• Golf Channel — golfchannel.com/news/news/liv-golf-not-the-only-sports-property-affect
• Benefits Canada — benefitscanada.com/news/bencan/teachers-sells-mlse-to-bell-rogers/
• Daily Faceoff — dailyfaceoff.com/news/rogers-purchases-full-ownership-toronto-maple-le
• Front Office Sports — frontofficesports.com/article/nfl-approves-ownership-stakes-arctos-woo

10. Debt and financing

• Sportico — sportico.com/business/finance/2024/mlb-debt-teams-fitch-1234821815/
• Sportico, NBA — sportico.com/business/finance/2024/nba-debt-declines-fitch-ratings-not
• Sportico — sportico.com/business/team-sales/2024/nfl-raises-debt-limit-billion-ne
• ESPN — espn.com/nba/story/_/id/23906803/nba-raises-owners-debt-limit-325-mill
• Covenant Lite — covenantlite.substack.com/p/covenant-lite-21-billion-dollar-ballers
• SBJ — x.com/SBJ/status/1735712034212229165
• The Stadium Business — thestadiumbusiness.com/2025/04/02/bills-secure-debt-waiver-for-new-hig
• MSGS 8-K — stocktitan.net/sec-filings/MSGS/8-k-madison-square-garden-sports-corp-
• Sportico — sportico.com/business/real-estate/2026/yankee-stadium-reserves-debt-se
• Dakota — dakota.com/reports-blog/june-2026-sports-investing-report
• Fortune — fortune.com/2025/07/18/jpmorgan-chase-sports-deals-boston-celtics-socc
• The Esk, Barcelona — theesk.org/2026/08/04/the-analysis-series-fc-barcelonas-most-recent-fu
• Bloomberg — bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-06-26/inter-milan-places-350-million-
• Inside World Football — insideworldfootball.com/2025/07/04/barca-agree-e424m-refinance-package
• Tottenham Hotspur — tottenhamhotspur.com/news/2026/march/financial-results-year-ended-30-j
• SportsPro — sportspro.com/news/finance-investment/real-madrid-bernabeu-redevelopme
• AC Milan — acmilan.com/en/news/articles/club/2026-01-30/redbird-capital-partners-
• KBRA — kbra.com/publications/qjfMXYhK/kbra-releases-research-financing-the-fi

11. Venues and real estate

• The Stadium Business — thestadiumbusiness.com/2026/09/28/d-c-unveils-final-rfk-campus-proposa
• Axios — axios.com/local/cleveland/2026/04/02/browns-brook-park-stadium-200-mil
• Business Observer — businessobserverfl.com/news/2026/aug/28/new-rays-stadium-advances/
• Bond Buyer — bondbuyer.com/news/nashville-approves-bonds-for-2-1-billion-tennessee-
• SportsPro — sportspro.com/news/athletics-las-vegas-stadium-ballpark-funding-update
• KBRA — kbra.com/publications/npwRCqSF
• Bond Buyer — bondbuyer.com/news/kansas-assembles-financing-team-for-chiefs-stadium-
• Chicago Bears — chicagobears.com/news/bears-reiterate-stadium-focus-remains-solely-on-
• Wikipedia — en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_Place
• Academy Securities — academysecurities.com/wp-content/uploads/Securitized_Special_Topics_Sp
• Sportico — sportico.com/business/sponsorship/2026/nu-bank-inter-miami-mls-stadium

12. European football and global sports capital

• Football Benchmark — footballbenchmark.com/w/european-club-football-revenues-approach-%E2%8
• Deloitte — deloitte.com/uk/en/about/press-room/hull-city-and-middlesbrough-to-com
• PitchBook — pitchbook.com/news/articles/private-equity-european-football-dashboard
• SportsPro — sportspro.com/news/finance-investment/european-football-uefa-revenue-f
• Sports Illustrated — si.com/soccer/how-many-premier-league-clubs-are-owned-by-americans
• Insider Sport — insidersport.com/2026/08/18/chelsea-boehly-walter-clearlake-sale/
• Sky Sports — skysports.com/football/news/11095/13275439/everton-takeover-the-friedk
• Sports Mole — sportsmole.co.uk/football/crystal-palace/europa-league/news/textor-out
• City Football Group — cityfootballgroup.com/company
• Sportcal — sportcal.com/news/silver-lake-expands-city-football-group-stake-to-18-
• City AM — cityam.com/red-bull-leeds-united-minority-owner-set-to-increase-footba
• Insider Sport — insidersport.com/2025/10/20/777-partners-ceo-charged/
• The Esk — theesk.org/2026/07/01/the-analysis-series-a-recap-on-the-status-of-jos
• UEFA — uefa.com/news-media/news/029b-1e361573fefc-94aa466245fc-1000--the-cfcb
• Northridge Law — northridgelaw.com/case-update-cas-dismisses-crystal-palace-appeal/
• LaLiga — laliga.com/en-GB/laliga-group/transparency-laliga-impulso
• SportsPro, LaLiga — sportspro.com/news/laliga-cvc-private-equity-deal-vote-real-madrid-bar
• SportsPro, DFL — sportspro.com/news/bundesliga-dfl-investment-deal-cvc-scrapped-fan-pro
• Liberty Media — sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1560385/000156038526000006/lmca-20260226xe
• MotoGP.com — motogp.com/en/news/2025/07/03/liberty-media-corporation-completes-acqu
• Forbes — forbes.com/sites/brettknight/2025/11/20/formula-1s-most-valuable-teams
• Sportico via Daily Sabah — dailysabah.com/sports/tennis/ferrari-leads-f1s-34b-boom-in-sporticos-l
• PlanetF1 — planetf1.com/features/f1-team-valuations-2026-ferrari-mercedes-red-bul
• Forbes — forbes.com/sites/brettknight/2025/12/17/the-worlds-most-valuable-women

14. Returns, liquidity and risk

• Penn Mutual AM — pennmutualam.com/market-insights-news/blogs/chart-of-the-week/2025-07-
• Avantis Investors — avantisinvestors.com/avantis-insights/nba-nfl-mlb-returns-vs-stock-mar

15. Market structure and competition

• Jackson Lewis — jacksonlewis.com/insights/beyond-game-tracking-2026s-pro-sports-labor-
• Cronkite News — cronkitenews.azpbs.org/2026/03/26/proposed-wnbas-cba-a-monumental-win-
• Sportico — sportico.com/leagues/basketball/2024/wnba-media-rights-deal-1234789726
• Sports Media Watch — sportsmediawatch.com/2026/08/murdoch-fox-nfl-renegotiate-closer-2029-o
• CBS Sacramento — cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/athletics-las-vegas-stadium-on-track-for-2

16. Regulation, tax and labor

• Proskauer — proskauertaxtalks.com/2025/05/one-big-beautiful-bill-update-on-provisi
• Kirkland — kirkland.com/publications/kirkland-alert/2025/07/final-one-big-beautif
• NPR — npr.org/2024/08/02/nx-s1-5061504/nfl-sunday-ticket-ruling-overturned
• Courthouse News — courthousenews.com/ninth-circuit-skeptical-of-nfls-win-in-sunday-ticke
• Bird & Bird — competitionlawinsights.twobirds.com/post/102jaly/spanish-court-confirm
• NBC News — nbcnews.com/sports/soccer/man-city-guilty-almost-115-financial-charges
• Inside World Football — insideworldfootball.com/2026/07/01/juve-newcastle-and-villa-hit-with-e
• CBS Sports — cbssports.com/college-football/news/house-v-ncaa-settlement-approved-l
• CBS Sports — cbssports.com/college-football/news/protect-college-sports-act-passes-
• WNBA — wnba.com/news/wnba-and-wnbpa-execute-long-form-collective-bargaining-a
• The Esk — theesk.org/2026/10/01/the-analysis-series-premier-league-v-manchester-

17. What goes wrong

• Broadcast — broadcastnow.co.uk/broadcasting/dazn-to-pay-100m-termination-fee-to-li
• SportsPro — sportspro.com/finance-investment/investment/777-partners-everton-takeo
• Bloomberg — bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-10-16/777-partners-co-founder-wander-
• SportsPro — sportspro.com/finance-investment/investment/olympique-lyon-ligue-2-rel
• Al Jazeera — aljazeera.com/sports/2025/12/17/uk-warns-abramovich-to-give-chelsea-sa
• Malay Mail — malaymail.com/news/sports/2026/02/12/real-madrid-uefa-reach-agreement-
• Forbes — forbes.com/sites/justinbirnbaum/2021/03/06/major-sports-leagues-lost-j
• SportsPro on Deloitte — sportspro.com/news/european-football-big-five-leagues-revenue-2019-20-
• CBS Sports — cbssports.com/nhl/news/nhl-borrows-1-billion-to-financially-help-teams
• CBS Sports — cbssports.com/nfl/news/commanders-sale-disgraced-former-owner-dan-snyd

18. The industry map and company profiles

• Tifosy — tifosy.com/data_insights/38
• Wikipedia — en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctos_Partners
• BNN Bloomberg — bnnbloomberg.ca/business/company-news/2024/09/18/rogers-communications
• Sportico — sportico.com/business/media/2026/nba-ad-sales-media-rights-deal-tv-123
• The Esk — theesk.org/2025/01/09/details-of-the-friedkin-financial-restructuring-

19. Trends and outlook

• SportsPro — sportspro.com/news/womens-sport/wnba-cba-wnbpa-2032-revenue-salaries-b

21. Signposts and calendar

• Boston Globe — bostonglobe.com/2026/10/03/sports/red-sox-season-over-lockout-looms