When billionaire mortgage lender Mat Ishbia bought the Phoenix Suns last year, the deal’s $4 billion enterprise value was nearly $1.7 billion beyond the next-highest price anyone had ever paid for an NBA team. But Ishbia didn’t have to think very hard about making the leap into sports ownership. “Due diligence? It’s an NBA team,” he told his attorneys, as he recalled on Rex Chapman’s podcast last October. “You guys can waste your time, but we’re buying the team, and here’s the timeline.”

That approach would be risky for most acquisitions, but history suggested Ishbia had little reason to fear. Since 1998, when Forbes began tracking NBA team values, franchises have appreciated roughly 2,200% on average, and they’re poised to keep growing. In June, the NBA more than doubled its national media rights fees with a new set of agreements that will take effect in 2025 and are reportedly worth $76 billion over 11 years.

That kind of return—and similar figures in other major sports leagues, including roughly 1,700% appreciation in the NFL over the same period—helps explain why team ownership has become an increasingly popular investment for the few who can afford it. On the latest edition of The Forbes 400—the definitive ranking of the wealthiest Americans, set to publish soon—54 billionaires are the controlling owner of a sports team in a major pro league, including 14 in the NBA.

The 20 richest owners from that group—perhaps the most exclusive club in sports—are now worth a combined $504 billion, according to Forbes estimates as of September 1, a 32% increase from a year ago. Their collective holdings include controlling stakes in ten teams from the NBA, eight from the NFL, five from professional soccer (including MLS and major European clubs), three from the NHL, two from MLB and one each from the WNBA and the Women’s Super League. Thanks not only to their steadily increasing sports team valuations but also to robust public markets, all but one are richer than they were last year.

For the tenth consecutive year, America’s richest sports team owner is former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who bought the Los Angeles Clippers for $2 billion in 2014 and has seen their value more than double over the past decade, to an estimated $4.65 billion, the fifth-best mark in Forbes’ 2023 NBA ranking. But that represents a small slice of the 68-year-old Ballmer’s $123 billion fortune, much of which comes from his Microsoft stock, up 35% over the past 12 months. He lands at No. 8 overall on The Forbes 400.

Ballmer isn’t the only owner with a massive stake in a publicly traded company. Walmart heir Rob Walton, who owns the Denver Broncos and ranks No. 2 among sports owners, with an estimated net worth of $94.3 billion, is a major owner of the retailer’s stock. Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert, No. 3 at $33.1 billion, holds shares worth roughly $27 billion in Rocket Companies, the fintech firm he founded in 1985. Meanwhile, the 13th-ranked Ishbia was the biggest gainer among this year’s sports owners, with his net worth nearly doubling to $13.1 billion behind the surging stock of United Wholesale Mortgage, the business his father founded in 1986 that the younger Ishbia runs as CEO.

Those favorable financial conditions have made this club even harder to crack than in years past. In 2023, the Baltimore Ravens’ Stephen Bisciotti ranked 20th among America’s richest sports owners, with a fortune of $7.2 billion; he drops off the list in 2024. It now takes at least $9.3 billion to rank among the 20........

© Forbes