Y! Sports Biz: Your team owner can afford it

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Y! Sports Biz: Your team owner can afford it

Wed, Sep 16, 2026 ·

11 min read

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👋 Welcome to Wednesday.Let's get down to biz.

In today's edition:Sports teams are big investments…and investors, who are the richest team owners in sports, mixed signals for the NFL, a look back at the lockout in the NHL, and more.

Time to show you the money...

💸 Nothing ventured, nothing gained

Much has been made of the sports team as an investment. That took getting used to. Less has been said about the sports team as an investor. Or a platform . Both labels, however, are becoming prevalent and appropriate descriptors for the forward-thinking modern franchise.

Value add:Thousands of investors can cut checks. Share advice. Provide intros. Very few can put a company in front of tens of thousands of engaged fans all gathered in the same place, not to mention the millions watching from home. Many of the same factors that make sports teams attractive investments make them attractive investors, and not just in sports companies.

Trade bait:Leagues and teams use their influence and attention as currency, trading it in exchange for equity. Rather than taking sponsorship dollars today, they can help incubate the deep-pocketed partners of tomorrow while participating in the financial upside from their growth.

Practicing investors:The ranks of teams-turned-investors have grown, and so long as sports retain their unwavering interest, that's unlikely to change. Many of your favorite teams and leagues are already in the game, including a few examples that illustrate the breadth of the trend.

32 Equity:The NFL's venture arm was established in 2013 with a $1 million investment from each owner, and it has scaled significantly since (On Location, Fanatics, and Clear have been investments). Sportico recently reported that the league is exploring a larger new fund, run with an institutional partner and seeded with outside capital.
Hotspur Labs:Launched last week, Tottenham Hotspur's venture platform will target companies that could benefit from in-stadium and digital exposure to the club's global fanbase. The club operates the platform in partnership with The Players Fund , an athlete-led VC firm which has built similar labs with Juventus and Como.
AO Ventures:The Australian Open and Tennis Australia launched a VC arm in 2025, investing in early-stage technology-led businesses, particularly those where AO can be a client and leverage its platform to accelerate growth. The fund's piloting program, AO Startups, lets founders demonstrate their tech within the AO ecosystem.

Same principles apply:Teams and leagues aren't the only ones who can leverage the captive attention of an engaged fanbase. Investors in sports franchises are getting in on the act, as are the players who generate that attention.

Venture capital firm Collaborative Fund, which invests in an expansive portfolio of consumer-facing businesses, recently acquired a stake in DC United and Audi Field. Founder Craig Shapiro called a franchise "the ultimate consumer product," with its stadium providing a showcase for the firm's portfolio.
Private equity firm L Catterton and investment platform Patricof Co launched the $500 million CHAMP fund in April, which counts a roster of athletes as co-investors. The fund partners with consumer brands that can benefit from the athletes' influence.

The return game:If attention is currency, sports properties are Scrooge McDuck. They have more of it than they can make use of on their own. By leveraging their platforms as a launchpad for other businesses, they create new return streams to harvest sports' societal influence.

💰 Your owner can afford it

The top 20 owners in sports are collectively worth an estimated $666 billion, according to Forbes' annual rankings , up 10% from last year.

For context:The cumulative market capitalization of the S&P 500 is approximately $69 trillion. The cumulative wealth of just 20 sports owners equates to nearly 1% of that figure. How about U.S. household wealth ? That totals $186 trillion. 0.36% of it is represented here.

Around the leagues:10 NFL teams are represented in the top 20, just two more than the NBA and three more than MLS, thanks to the popularity of bolting on a soccer franchise to existing NFL infrastructure. The richest owners in each league are as follows:

NBA:Steve Ballmer, Clippers ($156 billion)
NFL:Rob Walton, Broncos ($132 billion)
NHL:Henry Samueli, Ducks ($34 billion)
MLB:Steve Cohen, Mets* ($27 billion)

Bottom line:If your team's owner is featured on this list, they have little reason not to invest in their competitiveness… within the rules, of course ( right, Steve? ).

*Soon to be replaced by Stan Kroenke with the completion of his Angels acquisition. Until then, MLB appears on the list just once!

🏈 Mixed signals from NFL openers

As always, the NFL opened its season by attracting viewership numbers that most other sports could attain only on their biggest nights. But when you've raced as far ahead of the competition as the NFL has, the only comparison that matters is to itself. And it's proving to be a stiff competitor.

Mixed messages:The initial results from the NFL's Week 1 primetime slate offered a datapoint for every desired narrative, good or bad.*

Deflated Super Bowl rematch:Wednesday's opener between the Seahawks and Patriots on NBC averaged 25.1 million viewers, down 11% from 2025's opener and the lowest for an opener since 2022. A silver lining: The game was the most-watched opener among viewers aged 18 to 49 since 2021. Take that for data, Gallup .
Global growth Down Under:Thursday's Melbourne game averaged 18.5 million U.S. viewers on Netflix, equal to 2025's opening-week Brazil game on YouTube. Netflix notched 2 million more non-U.S. viewers, though, at 3.2 million. Count those as wins for Netflix (subscription outperforming free) and the NFL's global ambitions. Chalk an L for streaming reach relative to broadcast networks.
Sunday night surge:NBC's "Sunday Night Football" matchup between the Cowboys and Giants drew 25.7 million viewers, up 4% from last year for SNF's most-watched opening game since 2015. Never hurts to draw a Cowboys fanbase that hasn't yet had hope extinguished.

Big picture:Resist the temptation to make the Super Bowl rematch a referendum on Wednesdays. Or to characterize a lost battle for the streamers as a lost war. And hold off on assuming the NFL has lost its fastball. Clearer trends will emerge over a full season. For now, the opening week was nothing more than additional evidence that the NFL can roll out the footballs on any day, on any continent, and still attract some of the biggest audiences in sports.

Bonus chart: The Longhorns' thrilling comeback win over Ohio State was the most-watched game on ESPN networks since 2016, the most-watched Week 2 game on record for any network, and the most-watched regular-season primetime game since Notre Dame-USC in 2012. Despite claiming as many epithets as Apollo Creed, it still failed to surpass even CBS's early Sunday window in viewership.

*Note: Viewership data from Monday Night Football will be released today at the earliest.

⚡Lightning Round

📺 Buck lands new ESPN deal:Joe Buck and ESPN have reportedly reached an agreement on a six-year, $108 million contract extension, according to The Athletic . Buck is in the final season of his current five-year deal as the voice of "Monday Night Football."

🤝 Leagues band together against gambling harassment:The NFL, MLB, MLS, NBA, and NHL, along with their respective player unions, issued a statement to gaming regulators calling for reforms to address harassment and threats directed toward players. The WNBPA was dismayed to be excluded from the letter.

🏟️ Kraft bans Macklemore:Patriots owner Robert Kraft confirmed he barred Macklemore from Ed Sheeran's shows at Gillette Stadium later this month, based on material shared in pro-Palestinian messaging at MetLife Stadium shows and a "broader history of antisemitic rhetoric." Sheeran's other opening acts have since withdrawn from the tour in solidarity.

🏀 NBA making progress with EuroLeague:Adam Silver confirmed that the NBA is making progress in negotiations with the EuroLeague as it works toward launching NBA Europe next summer. Italian newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport had previously reported that the NBA was considering an offer for a controlling stake in the league, though Silver did not confirm that report.

🔥 Novig under fire for Sweeney ad:Prediction market company Novig has come under fire for its racy advertisement featuring Sydney Sweeney, with many female athletes particularly vocal in opposition. Novig CEO Jacob Fortinsky told Front Office Sports the ad wasn't attempting to portray women's sports and noted Sweeney drove many of the visuals and messaging.

See what else is trending on the Yahoo Sports Business Hub .

📆 This Day in History: NHL puts the season on ice

The NHL season begins in two weeks, and the league will take the ice eager to build on the momentum created in last year's post-Olympics glow. But too often in league history, the fall calendar has been crowded with frosty negotiations, threats of missed games, and locked doors.

On this day in 2012,the NHL began its third lockout in 19 years after the prior collective bargaining agreement expired at 11:59 pm the night before.

The stakes:The salary cap took center ice in negotiations (who could've guessed?!), as the players' share of revenue had soared to 57%, putting the league's smaller-market teams under financial strain. According to Forbes, 13 of the NHL's 30 teams had lost money the prior season.

The cap had only been implemented after the 2004-05 lockout, which canceled the whole season. Already, though, the league returned to the table seeking material concessions in player pay (paying attention, MLBPA?).
The NHL initially sought a decrease from 57% to 43% of revenues. Players were amenable to a smaller reduction, provided it was accompanied by greater revenue sharing among teams and their existing contracts were made whole.
The NHL also wanted a five-year maximum term for player contracts, while players preferred seven years.

The resolution:The threat of antitrust litigation and a lost season ultimately forced a January settlement. The owners and players agreed to a 50/50 revenue split, with $300 million in make-whole payments and revenue sharing among clubs increased from $150 million to $200 million. Player contracts were capped at seven years, or eight for re-signings.

The epilogue:The NHL's new CBA, agreed in July 2025, takes effect today. The sides came to an agreement on this one with far less difficulty, having learned from past pain. The most impactful change is the reduction in contract terms to a maximum of six years, or seven for re-signings, inspiring a flood of eight-year contracts before the CBA's expiry. Perhaps in another 14 years, the league might reach its original five-year goal.

📈 Over/Under: Fanatics Funding

The NFL's 32 Equity invested in Fanatics in 2017 at a valuation close to $4 billion, according to Sportico . The company most recently raised funds in 2022.

Over/Under:Was Fanatics' valuation at that time over or under $25 billion?

Answer at the bottom.

📹 Fan streamers get animated about NFL

We live in an era when young audiences happily watch internet personalities watch games. Absent rare official partnerships, though, these streams don't include live game footage. That doesn't stop streamers from providing viewers with a look at the action on the field.

Jacob Feldman, Sportico:

Online personalities couldn't carry NBC's feed — that obviously costs millions. But through a deal between Fan.Live and the Creator Sports Network, they were able to show one of the next best things: 22 3D cartoon models recreating players' positions in close to real time using location data from chips embedded in each athlete's pads.

When the Seahawks and Patriots faced each other in February's Super Bowl, Mario Manuel Sanchez, aka Football Nation, provided commentary on YouTube with a live-updating box score and drive tracker taking up much of the screen.

On Wednesday, that real estate largely went to 22 little figurines. "I like the graphic man," one chatter said. "Is this real game information?" another asked. It was.

Keep reading: NFL Fan Streamers Can't Show Live Games. Enter Animation.

Over/Under answer:Over. Fanatics was valued at $31 billion in 2022. Tidy return for 32 Equity.

Thanks for reading! Wanna talk shop? Follow me on X and Linkedin , or drop me a line: dylan.dittrich@yahooinc.com .

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