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In August, a consortium that includes Jeff Bezos agreed to buy roughly a third of Liverpool in a deal CNBC reported valued the club at about $7.1 billion. Fenway Sports Group paid £300 million for the club in 2010, and CNBC’s own ranking had put Liverpool at $6 billion as recently as May. The same month, Bob Iger and Josh Kushner agreed to buy control of the Los Angeles Lakers at a record $12.5 billion valuation, and Major League Baseball approved the $3.9 billion sale of the San Diego Padres.
Prices at this level are drawing in new buyers and new lenders, and they are changing how ownership gets financed.
A wider buyer pool
In J.P. Morgan’s latest survey of 111 billionaire families, 20% held controlling stakes in sports teams, up from 6% in 2022. The bank put the combined value of US and European franchises at about $400 billion and said sports deal value had risen eightfold in five years.
Six of the eight largest franchise sales in history have closed since 2022. Sal Galatioto, an investment banker who has arranged team sales for 30 years, told CNN he had never been busier and called team ownership “a hedge against technology disruption.”
The Ross-Arctos Sports Franchise Index, which tracks North American franchise values, gained 16.5% in the 12 months to March 2026, ahead of private equity at 12.3% and private credit at 7.4%, and just behind US equities at 17.8%. Over a much longer run, the index says franchise values have compounded at 13.0% a year for more than six decades.
At the same time, streaming services including Amazon, Apple and Netflix have pushed up broadcast rights fees, and Victor Matheson, a sports economist at the College of the Holy Cross, told CNN that as much as $1 billion a year in gambling-related money may now reach teams and leagues.
Debt limits lag
Sportico puts the average value of an NFL franchise at $9.34 billion this year. In 2024, the league raised the debt it allows incoming owners to a combined $1.4 billion, when the average team was worth $5.1 billion. Average values have risen by more than 80% since then. Unless the cap rises at the same pace, buyers must fund more of each purchase with equity.
Apollo already controls Atlético Madrid through a 55% stake at an implied valuation of about $2.9 billion. In August its Apollo Sports Capital arm agreed to put $2.6 billion into the parent company of the New York Yankees, money the group can use to refinance or retire much of its existing debt, according to The Athletic. Major League Baseball caps any single private equity fund at 15% of a club.
Apollo is also raising a dedicated sports vehicle targeting $5 billion to $6 billion, with a focus on credit and hybrid financing, and Ares is targeting $2 billion for its second sports finance fund. A report by fundraising data firm Dakota counts 30 of the 112 franchises across the NFL, NBA, MLB and Premier League with some institutional capital, and KKR bought Arctos Partners, which holds roughly half of those positions, for $1.4 billion in February.
Funding the stake
For individual buyers, how to fund the purchase usually comes down to wealth held in other assets, most often shares in the companies that made them rich. In the Liverpool deal, the largest contribution, more than $1 billion, came from K5 Global, the fund where Bezos is the lead investor, according to CNBC. EE Capital, the family office of Elaine and Eduardo Saverin, also took part. The consortium vehicle, 1892 Holdings, is run by Amit Bhatia, a former co-owner of Queens Park Rangers, who becomes Liverpool’s vice chairman.
An owner raising cash for a stake can sell shares or finance against equities already held. A sale gives up any later rise in the stock. A loan secured on shares can allow the owner to retain exposure to the underlying equity, although a decline in the value of those shares may affect the financing arrangement.
Clubs can still lose money
Europe’s top-flight football clubs reported aggregate losses of €1.1 billion in UEFA’s latest club finance report, even as revenue for the 2025 financial year was expected to pass €30 billion. Chelsea alone lost £355 million, the largest single-season loss recorded by a Premier League club. About 65% of early-reporting clubs in Europe’s top leagues still made a pre-tax profit for the year.
“You can afford to overpay as long as you believe that there will be people in the future willing to overpay by at least as much or more,” Matheson told CNN.
The Liverpool consortium has until August 2027 to take majority control at a valuation of around $8 billion, CNBC reported, about $900 million above the price agreed this summer.