JPMorgan’s Billionaires Are Buying in Sports Teams Over Art: Report

Forget fine art and cars. The hottest investment among billionaires this year is sports teams.

JPMorgan’s ultra-wealthy clientele is all about pouring their money into athletics, according to a new report from the bank. Out of 111 families surveyed, about 20 percent of them now own a controlling stake in a sports team, its 2025 Principal Discussions Report said. That’s an increase of almost 14 percent from 2023, when around 6 percent of families were part of the sports team ownership bandwagon, Bloomberg reported.

The households in question have a net worth of over $500 billion altogether. And about a third of them invested in sports over anything else, including art, cars, and more. The recent increase in ownership can be attributed to families’ involvement in asset management companies, which are setting down even stronger roots in the sports world thanks, in part, to successful T.V. ratings, according to Bloomberg. In addition, the NBA and NFL have also become more available to private-equity firms as of late, which helps the value of sports teams go way up.

Plenty of notable names have snagged pieces of sports teams over the past few years. Steve Cohen, in addition to being the billionaire owner of the New York Mets, has also invested in New York Golf Club (part of Tiger Woods’s TGL golf league). And just last month, financier Mark Walter bought the Los Angeles Lakers at a $10 billion valuation; he’s also a controlling owner of the Dodgers. The Koch family, not to be left out, snatched up a 10 percent stake in the New York Giants in October; that piece of the pie had a whopping $10.3 billion valuation. Not to mention various investors guzzling up teams across the pond, where soccer (a.k.a. football) reigns supreme.

Want to get in on the action for yourself? We asked some the leading sports owners on their best tips and tricks to owning a team. Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, for one, said that you should prepare yourself to cede a serious amount of authority: “I have zero control once the ball goes up. That’s unlike anything I have ever done.”  Steve Horowitz, a partner in the boutique investment bank Inner Circle Sports, reminds anyone interested in the sports game to keep their head. “Be dispassionate around the financial situation,” he told Robb Report. “People who are brilliant in one business often get into sports and have a harder time thinking through the issues around the team.”

And don’t forget: Once you own one, you’ll likely want more, as Houston Dynamo Jake Silverstein learned rather quickly. “I see lots of opportunities to acquire or invest in clubs that are on the market, or off the market but potentially available,” he said at the time. “That didn’t use to be the case until I got in the flow of this world.”