The business of sports is booming, especially in the NFL. Earlier this month, the Koch family purchased a 10% stake in the New York Giants, which valued the Giants at $10 billion. This follows other recent investments by private equity firms in the Miami Dolphins, Buffalo Bills, and Los Angeles Chargers.
With sports assets’ valuations generally skyrocketing, one might think we will eventually see more professional sports teams go public. But Josh Harris, co-founder of Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment and principal owner of the Washington Commanders, does not believe that will be the case.
Will Pro Sports Teams Go Public In The Coming Years?
Speaking at the CNBC Sport and Boardroom’s Game Plan conference last week in California, Harris was asked if we are likely to see more pro sports teams or large ownership groups start to go public.
“I don’t think so. When you think about IPOs and sports assets being public so far, they’ve been valued more highly as private assets,” Harris said. “You haven’t seen the public valuations exceed the private valuations. Therefore, people have tended to keep them private.”
The last pro sports team to go public in the United States was Major League Baseball’s Atlanta Braves, trading on the Nasdaq beginning in late July 2023. The Braves have seen their value rise over 5% since their IPO.
The most prominent publicly traded professional sports teams in the United States are probably the New York Knicks and New York Rangers, both owned by Madison Square Garden Sports Corporation. Trading under the ticker MSGS, the MSG Sports Corp. has seen its value grow over 40% in the last five years.
With these kinds of returns possible and no shortage of interest in sports assets, why does Harris believe most sports owners will choose not to take their teams public?
“People have tended to keep them private because ultimately as someone who is running a team, you want to be able to spend to win,” Harris told CNBC’s Scott Wapner. “You want to be able to take a very long-term perspective, and the public markets haven’t always embraced that.”
Harris’ Growing Sports Portfolio
Harris does not just own the Commanders. Harris and fellow co-founder David Blitzer created Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment in 2017 and have since gone on to purchase majority stakes in the Philadelphia 76ers, New Jersey Devils, and Premier League soccer club Crystal Palace. The group also will own the new WNBA expansion team in Philadelphia set to begin play in 2030.
Harris and the Commanders will also be the primary owner and financier of the recently approved new Commanders stadium, to sit at the current site of RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C.
Harris is estimated to have a net worth of $10.9 billion and is ranked as the NFL’s 11th-richest owner. In addition to his work with Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, Harris co-founded the investment firm Apollo Global Management in 1990 but stepped down in 2021. In 2022, Harris co-founded a new asset management firm called 26North.
