The World's Most Valuable Sports Empires 2024

With last year's $6 billion purchase of the Washington Commanders, Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment vaulted up the ranks of the most lucrative team portfolios-but they're still not No. 1.

- MIKE OZANIAN & JUSTIN TEITELBAUM

Owning a sports team has long been a goal of the ultra-rich, but expanding that into an empire—with multiple teams across various leagues—is a winning strategy for creating generational wealth. Having a portfolio of teams allows an owner to sell cross-sponsorships, develop mixed-use real estate and expand into new distribution channels with greater ease. A sports empire can also take the pressure off any single team a sports owner has, acting as a hedge for rebuilding years. And it almost always pays off.

In 2024, the 25 most valuable sports empires in the world have an aggregate enterprise value of $216 billion—or an average of $8.6 billion—which represents an increase of 24% from a year ago. The main reason for the rise? Team values have been growing at a robust pace. On average, the 124 teams in MLB, the NBA, the NFL and the NHL went up 21% in value in 2023 versus the prior year. All of which has made it much harder to earn a place on this annual ranking—the cutoff this year is $4.95 billion, 38% higher than a year ago.

The biggest gainer on this year’s empires list is Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, up 155% from last year to $11.9 billion thanks mainly to Josh Harris’ purchase of the Washington Commanders in July for a record $6.05 billion. HBSE now effectively runs a group of assets from many of the world’s most popular sports: the NFL (Commanders), the NBA (Philadelphia 76ers), the NHL (New Jersey Devils), the English Premier League (Crystal Palace), Nascar (Joe Gibbs Racing) and youth sports (Ripken Baseball).