How to Fund It covers how high-net worth individuals finance the purchases that matter to them.
6 October 2026
When Fenway Sports Group (FSG) confirmed on August 14 that a consortium including Jeff Bezos had bought roughly 30% of Liverpool FC, the deal did more than add another trophy asset to an already long list for the Amazon founder.[1]
It priced the Merseyside club at $7-7.4 billion – 15 to 20 times what FSG paid to rescue it from near-collapse in 2010.[2]
For the world’s third-richest man, however, this was as much a portfolio move as a personal one: days before the deal closed, Bezos filed to sell up to $4 billion of Amazon stock.
Few can fund a purchase of this size in this way. But there’s a solution for a wider pool of the newly wealthy: borrowing against equity rather than selling it.
Buying a sports team was long the preserve of a small circle of moneyed tycoons from wealthy families who wanted a box and a seat at the boardroom table. That’s changing today: many younger owners see them as growth assets.
Not every franchise costs billions. Lower-division clubs, minority stakes in smaller leagues, and franchises in less commercially mature sports can be bought for a fraction of what Bezos paid. But most do still require continual injections of capital to ensure the future success that can lead to potential revaluation over the years.
From personal project to asset class
Bret Taylor, OpenAI’s chairman, took a 1% stake in the San Francisco 49ers[3] in late 2025 that valued the franchise at over $9 billion. At the start of that year, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella and Google’s Sundar Pichai were part of a consortium that bought a stake in an English cricketing franchise, London Spirit.[4]
It’s not always individuals. In August 2026, Apollo Global Management put up $2.6 billion for a minority stake in the New York Yankees baseball organization – a sign that institutional capital also sees sports franchises as a legitimate allocation today.[5]
Sports bankers who have spent decades brokering these kinds of deals say they have never been busier. Sports team acquisitions reached $23.6 billion in aggregate value through August 2025 alone, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence — a record pace that has continued this year as well.[6],[7]
Ownership of a sports team used to be akin to buying fine art, often bought for prestige rather than a return. But it’s increasingly becoming a tried-and-tested asset class, with future revenues capable of paying for the purchase on their own. It’s also seen as a diversification play – after all, a storied club with a century of fan loyalty is seen as harder to disrupt than a tech company.[8],[9]
For a new generation of high net-worth individuals, a sports franchise checks other boxes too. It is a visible, prestige-building asset that raises an individual’s (and often a company’s) public profile. Today, a stake in a sporting franchise often doubles as a piece of corporate culture: a shared, visible passion project that boosts morale internally and enhances brand recognition externally.
It is also a cash-generating business, with media rights, sponsorship and matchday revenue.
Perhaps, most importantly of all, these investments can also deliver extraordinary capital appreciation. North American sports franchises have compounded at 13.2% annually over the past 20 years, outperforming public equity indexes by around 2% per year, with lower volatility and near-zero correlation to macro cycles.[10]
Owning sports teams is hard work
To be sure, investments in sports teams are not always a one-way bet. Franchise values are also more tied to on-field performance than headline valuations suggest, and a prolonged losing run can dent attendance, sponsorship and local media revenue in ways that don’t show up until the next set of accounts.
Buying in is also rarely the end of the capital commitment. New ownership groups routinely follow an acquisition with fresh investment in facilities, coaching and management, medical and performance infrastructure. Today, those investments also often include data and technology systems.
Adding to the challenge is the fact that sports financing is usually outside the core domain of expertise of most private banking desks. Franchises are illiquid, reputation-sensitive, cyclical assets – not the kind of collateral banks are known to lend against, even if the calculus often shifts for important clients.
Competition is also heating up as more high-net worth individuals seek to bid for sporting assets, which is pushing valuations up.
There is also an altruistic side to such deals. Capital flowing into sports can be more than just a new form of luxury spending. Well-funded clubs can invest more in youth development and community programmes, and sport remains one of the more reliable routes out of poverty and into opportunity for talented young athletes who would otherwise never get the chance. This developmental ethos is one of the key reasons that prompted tycoons in previous eras to buy or invest in sports.
Bezos hasn’t said what pushed him toward Liverpool, but weeks earlier he was in the stands at Seattle’s Lumen Field for the World Cup Round of 16, watching USA take on Belgium while donning a US Men’s National Team jersey among a sellout crowd.[11]
It’s not hard to imagine that the atmosphere left a mark on a man already weighing where to put his billions to work.
For others considering a similar investment, speaking to credit providers can help unlock ways to muster the funds for that once-in-a-lifetime purchase.
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/14/jeff-bezos-group-buys-stake-liverpool-fc.html
[2] https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/jeff-bezos-takes-bold-turn-160300120.html
[3] https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/san-francisco-49ers-openai-chair-bret-taylor-acquires-minority-stake/
[4] https://news.sky.com/story/microsoft-and-google-chiefs-in-295m-deal-for-london-spirit-13300302
[5] https://www.reuters.com/sports/yankees-receive-26b-private-equity-deal--flm-2026-08-11/
[6] https://www.spglobal.com/market-intelligence/en/news-insights/articles/2025/10/private-equity-deal-value-in-sports-services-hits-8-year-high-of-6b-93884455
[7] https://www.dakota.com/resources/blog/top-10-sports-team-transactions-of-2026-so-far
[8] https://www.thedailyupside.com/advisor/investing-strategies/billionaires-cover-all-the-bases-with-sports-investments/
[9] https://edition.cnn.com/2026/08/24/business/sports-team-buying-spree
[10] https://michiganross.umich.edu/faculty-research/partnerships/ross-arctos-sports-franchise-index
[11] https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/jeff-bezos-eddie-vedder-usa-061301825.html
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