How Mega‑Portfolios Dominate Modern Sport

Stoke image. Source: Webador.com

So why should any of us, armed with a student loan and a halfway-decent fantasy-team record, care about billionaire shopping sprees? Because these valuations dictate everything from next season’s ticket prices to whether your favourite winger gets traded for “financial fair-play flexibility.” Over the next few scrolls I’ll unpack how empires like the Jones family’s Cowboys kingdom, and Fenway’s trans-Atlantic conglomerate gain revenues, juggle debt, and quietly shape the sports we claim to watch for love of the game. 

How CNBC Calculates Empire Value

First, CNBC uses a sum‑of‑the‑parts view. Analysts give each team under an ownership group an enterprise value based on the latest sales or, if no sale exists, on benchmarks from places like Forbes and Sportico. Then they add extra money‑makers, team‑owned TV networks, arenas and stadium land, hospitality spinoffs like Legends for the Cowboys, plus cash‑rich training campuses that double as theme parks. Last, they subtract any debt tied to those assets so the final number shows real equity, not just raw revenue potential.

Forbes uses a different playbook when it values just one club. It asks what that single franchise would sell for on its own and ignores most side businesses. Forbes puts the Dallas Cowboys at 10.1 billion dollars, while CNBC values Jerry Jones’s whole portfolio at 15.53 billion dollars because it adds Legends Hospitality and the 91‑acre Star complex, then knocks off the stadium debt. Empire math rewards owners who build profit centers around their main team.

Even Forbes admits size has its perks when it ranks multi‑team groups. It bumps the raw total by about ten percent to capture shared costs and brand boost. CNBC reaches a similar outcome by valuing each non‑team arm on its own, letting scale show up naturally in the roll‑up.

Why spell out the formula? Because investors, season‑ticket holders, and would‑be general managers all use these numbers to set budgets and ticket prices. Knowing where the extra billions come from explains why Kroenke can green‑light a SoFi‑sized stadium while smaller owners hesitate, and why venture funds keep lining up for minority stakes even when team prices already look sky‑high. In short, valuation is more than accounting; it is the scoreboard that decides who can afford to keep spending to win.

The Big Five

Kroenke Sports & Entertainment

Stan (r) and Josh Kroenke (c). Source: Getty Images

In just sixteen months the Rams won the Super Bowl, the Avalanche hoisted the Stanley Cup, and the Nuggets captured their first NBA title. That incredible run pushed Kroenke Sports & Entertainment to roughly 21.17 billion dollars, the top mark on CNBC’s 2025 ranking. Arsenal’s return to the Champions League also adds muscle, coming at a time when TV slots and sponsor fees are still climbing.

The money machine behind those teams is built in layers. SoFi Stadium brings in about 30 million dollars a year through a twenty‑year naming‑rights deal, and its concerts and college games keep cash flowing long after the NFL season ends. Ball Arena in Denver, along with the rent Arsenal collects at Emirates Stadium, adds more steady income, while regional cable deals smooth out year‑to‑year bumps.

Fans are showing up too. The Nuggets drew more than 811, 000 people during the 2024‑25 season, placing them among the NBA’s five biggest crowds. Over in London, Arsenal’s match‑day income jumped thirty percent to 132 million pounds thanks to Champions League nights and a modest ticket‑price tweak. Add worldwide shirt sales for Arsenal and replica merch for the Rams, and Kroenke has a cushion against the ups and downs that hurt owners with only one local team.

The Jones Family

Jerry Jones still runs the most valuable single team on the planet. CNBC says the entire Cowboys empire is worth 15.53 billion dollars. AT&T Stadium brings in the NFL’s biggest crowd, averaging 92,972 fans in 2024. That crowd drives the league’s top ticket and premium‑seat revenue, and the building hosts concerts and college games to keep cash flowing all year.

About thirty miles north, the 91‑acre Star complex in Frisco mixes the team’s headquarters with shops, a boutique hotel and practice fields. This site works like a year‑round money machine, letting Jones add big‑name sponsors without affecting the salary cap.

With more than 1 billion dollars in team revenue each season and steady eight‑figure payouts from Legends and real‑estate deals, the Cowboys empire shows how a famous logo can keep earning even when the Lombardi Trophy stays out of reach.

Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment

Josh Harris spent six billion dollars to buy the Washington Commanders and added that deal to a lineup that already included the Philadelphia 76ers, the New Jersey Devils and a smaller share of Crystal Palace. That move pushed the whole company’s value to about fourteen and a half billion dollars. The group also owns the Dignitas esports team and runs HBSE Ventures, showing it likes to test new markets while earning steady cash from local TV deals tied to the Prudential Center.

Timeline. Source: hbse.com

HBSE plans a new arena complex on Camden’s Delaware River waterfront that could collect almost eight‑hundred million dollars in state tax credits through the Aspire program, linking community growth to team economics.

During the 2024‑25 season the 76ers sold 813, 621 tickets at Wells Fargo Center, the second‑highest total in the NBA. Strong crowds help HBSE when it reworks local media contracts . With a new NFL team to market and NBA media rights talks on the horizon, the company’s income streams look solid even if the economy wobbles.

Fenway Sports Group

John Henry’s sports company is best known for the Boston Red Sox and Liverpool FC. But 2024 started with a headline-grabbing $3 billion investment in PGA Tour Enterprises, an equity play that could open a new revenue lane in men’s professional golf. Fenway also owns eighty percent of the NESN channel, and its streaming app NESN 360 doubled subscribers after a February price cut, turning a profit last year.

Liverpool earned more than three‑hundred million pounds in commercial income during the 2023‑24 season, helped by global sponsors and a bigger Anfield that now seats 61, 276 fans. Forbes says the Red Sox made about $120 million in operating profit in 2024, proving that team‑owned TV networks and ball‑park real estate can make good money even when the team’s results are average.

Add the Pittsburgh Penguins, who benefit from rising NHL national TV payments, and it becomes clear why CNBC values Fenway Sports Group at 14.19 billion dollars. Few owners have assets spread across so many places or a media setup that earns money on both traditional television and online streaming.

Madison Square Garden Sports

Madison Square Garden Sports ranks fifth on CNBC’s 2025 list with a value of 12.69 billion dollars. The business still leans on the Knicks and Rangers, but James Dolan’s new Sphere company also plays a growing role. Sphere Entertainment opened its Las Vegas arena late in 2023. Experts praise the arena’s huge advertising screens for future profits, even though the high construction cost adds weight to the company’s books.

Back in New York, the Knicks sold 811, 794 tickets in the 2024‑25 season, the third‑highest total in the NBA. Their long playoff run pushed MSG Sports revenue past 1 billion dollars for the first time, a fifteen percent jump from the previous year. Merchandise and luxury‑suite sales rose at the same pace, helped by a payment of more than $100 million from MSG Network. That internal deal shields the team from the money troubles that hit some other regional sports networks.

With the Knicks and Rangers both staying competitive and Sphere planning to build more high‑tech arenas worldwide, Madison Square Garden Sports shows how a company with a famous location can turn history and new technology into many streams of income.

Macroeconomic Tailwinds 

Sport empires look supercharged because their main fuel, Media rights, keeps getting pricier faster than almost anything else. S&P Global says US TV networks and streamers will pay 29.54 billion dollars for live sports in 2024. Back in 2015 they paid 14.64 billion, which means the figure has climbed about eight percent each year for nine seasons.

Media rights keep inflating

The big jump started when the NFL renewed its deal in 2023 for roughly $110 billion spread over 11 years. Every league now sets prices against that record. Tech giants have jumped in too.

• Amazon pays about $1 billion per year for exclusive Thursday Night Football.

• YouTube agreed to $2 billion annually for NFL Sunday Ticket, beating both Apple and Amazon at the bell.

• Apple locked MLS into a $2.5 billion, 10-year global deal, giving the league a single-platform reach it could never finance on cable.

Each contract forces incumbent networks to over-bid on the next cycle or risk losing the last genre that still delivers live, must-watch scale.

Streaming carve‑outs boost income

Teams now sell local games straight to fans. Apps like NESN 360, MSG Plus, and the Bally Sports service let owners collect money from cord‑cutters while still getting cable fees. For owners such as Kroenke or Dolan this means two income streams at once, one from cable partners today and another from monthly app subscriptions tomorrow, without big new costs.

Global fan bases turn followers into cash

Reaching fans outside North America brings real money. Liverpool added 21 million online followers in one year, giving it 127 million in total and helping it earn 247 million pounds in commercial revenue. Arsenal’s return to the Champions League raised match‑day income by double digits and attracted new sponsors across Asia and the Pacific. More eyes mean richer sleeve deals, higher shirt royalties, and proof that a Premier League night match can draw big audiences in Jakarta as well as London.

Put these three drivers together and you get a feedback loop. Rising rights money pays for larger player salaries and marketing campaigns, which create more fans worldwide, which convinces broadcasters to pay even more the next time. Unless a deep recession, strict new rules, or fan boredom breaks that loop, sports empires will likely keep growing faster than the titles they chase.

Governance and Risk

Its easy to talk billions, but they sit on rules and money flows that can change quickly. Kroenke Sports and Entertainment shows the danger best. SoFi Stadium cost about 5.5 billion dollars, the highest price ever for a sports venue, and Kroenke borrowed most of that money. The NFL had to raise his debt limit to nearly 5 billion dollars in both 2018 and 2020 so he could finish the project. Every time interest rates rise by half a percent, Kroenke’s yearly payments jump about 25 million dollars. If his teams start losing, that extra cost could squeeze the player budget. Big headline numbers that skip the debt story can make real value look larger than it is.

League ownership rules add another layer of risk. For years the NFL blocked owners from holding top‑level teams in other big U.S. cities, so Kroenke had to move the Nuggets and Avalanche shares into family trusts. The league dropped that rule in 2017, but it could bring it back, and many other leagues still have location or competition limits. A quick rule change could shrink the “diversification bonus” that multi‑team owners now enjoy.

Madison Square Garden. Source: David Aldridge/The Athletic

Team performance also matters. Madison Square Garden Sports proves that a famous name can hide long losing streaks. The Knicks have not won an NBA title since 1973 and have reached the Finals only once since 1999, yet MSG Sports made 1.03 billion dollars in revenue during fiscal‑year 2024, up 16 percent from the year before, thanks to sold‑out games and luxury‑suite sales. Investors price in a boost if the team finally wins, but if the club drops back to the draft lottery, ticket renewals, merchandise sales, and tourist traffic could fall fast.

In short, big empires grow because of scale, but that same scale brings heavy debt, rule‑change risk, and high expectations on the court. The larger the number on CNBC’s list, the more careful the owners must be about managing those risks.

Emerging Challengers 

AEG Worldwide, about 12 billion dollars, ranked sixth

Philip Anschutz runs more than the NHL’s Los Angeles Kings and MLS’s LA Galaxy. AEG owns or operates over 300 venues such as Crypto.com Arena and London’s O2. Its concert branch, AEG Presents, sold 30 million tickets last year. Naming‑rights money at L.A. LIVE helps keep AEG near the top even without many recent trophies.

Liberty Media

Liberty Media and MotoGP logo. Source: planetf1.com

John Malone’s Formula One Group is split into tracking stocks, so it sits outside CNBC’s roll‑up. Liberty just paid 4.2 billion euros, about 4.9 billion dollars, for 84% of MotoGP. Added to its 20‑plus‑billion dollar Formula One asset, the combined motorsport bundle would slot between Fenway Sports Group and HBSE. It now sells ads and streaming across 42 race weekends each season.

Monumental Sports and Entertainment, 7.48 billion dollars, ranked nineteenth

Ted Leonsis owns the Wizards, Capitals, Mystics, Capital One Arena, District E esports venue and a regional channel now called Monumental Sports Network. Arena upgrades and a new 15‑year naming deal lifted value 11 percent this year. A planned move of the Wizards and Capitals to a Virginia complex tied to a 2 billion dollar mixed‑use district could pull Monumental much closer to MSG Sports in a single cap cycle.

Strategic Takeaways for Investors and Fans

First comes fresh cash. In August 2024 NFL owners said approved private‑equity funds can now buy up to ten percent of a team. Each fund must hold its shares for at least six years and can invest in no more than six teams. This rule gives owners a new way to raise money without handing over daily control, and other leagues are likely to copy the NBA’s Arctos setup.

Owners are also spending on tech to keep fans happy. AEG is adding biometric scanners at gates, while Sphere uses giant immersive screens. These upgrades let teams earn more per fan on food, drinks and merchandise, so they can survive a few losing seasons without cutting payroll.

Finally, small ownership slices are now easier to buy. Funds that grab two or three percent of an NFL or NBA team get a share of growing media and real‑estate money with limited day‑to‑day risk. For fans this means more silent partners at the table, and those partners will care mainly about steady profit, not about giving hometown discounts to star players.

The Future of Sports Conglomerates

All the cash, math, and shiny arenas we just talked about point to one clear lesson, owning lots of teams is no longer just showing off, it is how big owners survive. Media deals and worldwide fan bases push prices so high that a single club can’t carry the debt, tech bills, and content hunger of modern sport. That is why Kroenke spreads his bets across leagues and why Jerry Jones bolted hotels and restaurants onto the Cowboys brand.

But the bigger you grow, the sharper the risks. Heavy loans rise and fall with interest rates, league rules on cross‑ownership can change overnight, and long playoff droughts still drain ticket sales. Private‑equity money now in NFL boardrooms also wants steady profit, not fairy‑tale endings, which can nudge ticket prices and streaming costs higher for fans like us.

So here is the fork in the road: will prices keep climbing until every owner needs a multi‑team empire, or will leagues step in to protect hometown balance and limit growth? One path turns today’s top five into tomorrow’s mid‑table; the other could pop the valuation bubble faster than a rookie’s first shoe deal.

do you like the idea of borderless sports empires, or should leagues pump the brakes before the scoreboard starts flashing stock tickers instead of player stats? Drop your thoughts below, I am ready to debate.

By Zenith Rathod

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