Now that the NFL, the richest sports league in the world, sits unchallenged atop American sports, that lofty perch raises its own questions: How can you sustain growth and popularity without falling prey to complacency—or greed? How do you further grow a successful league while fending off platform decay and lawsuits? What threats are out there, and what are the league’s tactics to defang them? What are some unchartered territories for the league? In its annual NFL preview, Sportico analyzes how the NFL handles life as a monopoly. Click here to read the series.
In 2013, each NFL team put $1 million into a new investment fund aimed at capturing more of the growth that the world’s richest sports league typically generates for its partners. Owners have since made more than a dozen investments through 32 Equity, scored a handful of exits and put hundreds of millions more behind the effort.
Thirteen years later, while the fund has continued growing, the cadence of its investments has slowed. Now, NFL owners are trying to figure out how a small-cap investment fund, which has typically written checks in the seven figures, fits into a football business that will bring in about $25 billion this season.
