Sports teams, throughout the 20th century, were pretty much trophy assets. Shiny, nice to have, but expected to gleam on the shelf rather than build value.
Not so anymore. The news this week of the proposed deal for FIFA’s commercial rights, in the afterglow of the World Cup, highlighted the new normal: Sports teams are no longer viewed as expensive fun, but serious targets of multi-billion investment, anticipated to grow exponentially over time.
The data bears this out: In 2014, global private equity deal count for professional sports teams and leagues amounted to 13 deals and $1.9 billion in deal value, according to PitchBook data pulled for Term Sheet. By the end of 2025, the global deal count in the sector was 71 deals with $18.45 billion in value.
The deals themselves also snag headlines, and understandably. I certainly looked twice when I saw Ares Management in 2024 buy a minority stake in the Miami Dolphins (valuing my family’s tragic favorite NFL team at $8 billion), or spent a solid hour reading about the 2025 deal valuing the Los Angeles Lakers at $10 billion. (In 2000, the Lakers were valued at $360 million.)
Structural shifts have happened (in both the U.S. and abroad) to make this flood of institutional capital possible. The rules have, on some level, changed. Throughout the 1900s, in North America, many major sports leagues forbade private equity deals, leaving ownership to wealthy individuals and families.
