Strength in Numbers: Advantages of Multi-Club Ownership in Sport

This article was originally published in Populous Magazine, our biannual publication featuring news and trends from the worlds of sport, entertainment, and major public events. Find out more, and subscribe for free, here.

Some of the world’s highest performing clubs and sports businesses have been conglomerated under powerful companies, dynasties or individuals. We explore the advantage this ownership model brings to the clubs themselves, and their athletes, sponsors and fans.

Who is global sport’s most influential person? While superstar athletes such as Coco Gauff, LeBron James and Lionel Messi stand tall as the public faces of sport that we see on a daily basis, it’s often the businesspeople behind the scenes who wield equal, if not greater influence. And one of them, billionaire landowner John C. Malone, is probably more powerful than all the others. This 82-year-old American is chairman and the largest voting shareholder of Liberty Media – currently the world’s most valuable sports empire, owner of the Formula One Group and the Atlanta Braves baseball team, with stakes in other major sports ventures. Forbes magazine values the company at just under US$21 billion.

Across the planet, sports empires are on the rise, with investors, hedge funds and even sovereign nations buying up multiple sports teams, properties and businesses, offering all the benefits and economies of scale one finds with other global conglomerates. Ranked second on Forbes magazine’s list of global sports empires is Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, whose influence extends across soccer, American football, basketball, ice hockey, indoor lacrosse and esports, thanks to their ownership of Los Angeles Rams, Colorado Avalanche, Denver Nuggets, Arsenal FC, The Guard, Colorado Rapids and Colorado Mammoth. Other leading individuals or groups include Jerry Jones (owners of Dallas Cowboys), Fenway Sports Group (Boston Red Sox, Liverpool FC and Pittsburgh Penguins), and Madison Square Garden Sports (New York Knicks, New York Rangers, Hartford
Wolf Pack).

Most of these ventures are funded through private equity funds. But City Football Group, which owns Manchester City FC, New York City FC, Melbourne City FC, and other soccer clubs across western Europe, India, Japan, China and South America, is 81-per cent-owned by Sheikh Mansour, vice president of the United Arab Emirates. Then there’s the Public Investment Fund, the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia, which owns Newcastle United FC and LIV Golf.
So how does multi-club ownership benefit the individual clubs and the fans who support them? The funds’ cumulative power and expertise – and of course their vast resources – should not be underestimated. Nor should the economies of scale they can employ. Having multiple clubs and sports businesses on their books allows empires to expand fan bases internationally, tap into new markets and generate new revenue streams.