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January 4, 2026

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Pro sports team valuations reached unprecedented heights in 2025, culminating in Mark Walter’s record-breaking acquisition of the Lakers at a $10 billion valuation. Soaring purchase prices have produced bigger buying groups, more minority-stake deals, and an increase in multistage transactions. With no major changes to existing market dynamics, it’s entirely likely 2026 will deliver a new record.

— Ben Horney [[link removed]]

Why Pro Sports Team Valuations Will Keep Climbing in 2026 [[link removed]]

Gary A. Vasquez-Imagn Images

The record for highest valuation of a pro sports franchise in a change-of-control sale was broken in 2025—twice. First, when the Celtics were sold at an initial valuation of $6.1 billion, and again three months later when the Lakers were sold at a $10 billion valuation. (And if you go by valuations from sales of minority stakes, the New York Giants topped $10 billion [[link removed]] with the sale of a stake to the Kochs in September.)

The same market dynamics that have made a U.S. pro sports team a sure bet investment remain true: scarcity of teams, media-rights certainty, and a growing pool of potential investors. That means 2026 will likely see team valuations climb even higher. That trend has produced bigger buying groups, more minority-stake deals, and an increase in multistage transactions. While NBA and NFL teams sit atop the market, almost every pro franchise is now a high-value financial asset that can be monetized through minority sales.

Among the big four North American men’s pro sports—the NBA, NFL, MLB, and NHL—franchises have outperformed most other asset classes over the past two decades, generating 13.2% annualized returns [[link removed]], according to the Ross-Arctos Sports Franchise Index, a collaboration between Arctos Partners and the Michigan Ross School of Business.

Over the past year, the returns were 16.9%, outpacing nearly every other asset class it tracks, except media and entertainment.

Dave Dase, global co-head of sports for Goldman Sachs, says more sophisticated league governance—such as there being clear ownership rules and shared revenues across franchises—is part of the reason for the outsized valuations in North American pro sports.

“That has been a principal driver, quite frankly, in some of these valuations,” Dase said in October [[link removed]] during the inaugural Front Office Sports Asset Class summit in New York.

That’s because investors “know what they’re investing in because there’s a very specific business model,” Dase said.

More than half of the NBA and NFL teams have considered a minority-stake sale in recent years, one investment banking source tells FOS.

“You have owners who own 100% saying, ‘Gee, I can sell 10%, give up no control and no rights?’” the source says. “Even Robert Kraft did that. Even the Giants did that. These owners are saying, ‘Why wouldn’t I do that?’”

NBA and NFL Set the Tone

The NBA and NFL lead the pack. In 2025, three NBA team sales were announced—the Celtics, Lakers, and Trail Blazers—all valued above $4 billion, which would have been inconceivable a decade ago.

Steve Ballmer’s $2 billion [[link removed]] deal for the Clippers in 2014 reset the market, far surpassing the $550 million sale of the Bucks in 2012. But valuations have kept climbing thanks to the new $77 billion media-rights deal [[link removed]] that kicked in this season and a finite number of teams (just 30 in the NBA, though the league will decide in 2026 whether to add two teams [[link removed]]).

Stephen R. Sylvanie-Imagn Images

The $1.5 billion Timberwolves sale, which finally closed in June [[link removed]] after a prolonged dispute, illustrated how high the stakes have risen. Departing owner Glen Taylor, who bought the Timberwolves for $88 million in 1994, tried to contest his own agreement [[link removed]] after the fact by claiming buyers Alex Rodriguez and Marc Lore missed a payment, but the duo countered that the 84-year-old was having “seller’s remorse” after the Suns sold for $4 billion in December 2022. The deal was completed following mediation and arbitration.

Of those four NBA deals, three are multi-part transactions [[link removed]], signaling a broader trend [[link removed]] (only Mark Walter’s Lakers takeover [[link removed]] was completed in one fell swoop). There aren’t many individuals wealthy enough to afford to pay for a pro team on their own; deals increasingly require multiple investors and phased closings to spread risk and raise enough capital.

That’s where private equity has found its opening [[link removed]]. The NBA’s existing PE ownership rules were formalized in 2019. Today, at least eight teams have direct PE investors [[link removed]], including the Celtics, Warriors, Kings, and Jazz.

Relaxed rules regarding PE investment are a way for leagues to allow owners to gain liquidity without ceding control. In the NFL, the last change-of-control deal was the $6.05 billion sale [[link removed]] of the Commanders in 2023, but minority-stake sales have been more frequent, including four private-equity deals since the league adopted its new policy [[link removed]] in 2024.

Headline deals included the sale of a 10% stake in the New York Giants [[link removed]] to Julia Koch and members of her family at a more than $10 billion valuation, the sale of a total 6% stake [[link removed]] in the 49ers to a group of three families at a reported $8.5 billion valuation, and the sale of a total 8% stake [[link removed]] in the Patriots—including 3% to private-equity firm Sixth Street—at a more than $9 billion valuation.

Like the NBA, the NFL has scarcity, with 32 teams, and a mega media-rights deal—the league is in the midst of 11-year, $111 billion media-rights deals that it is expected to opt out of early [[link removed]] to get even better terms.

MLB and NHL Trending Upward

MLB and NHL teams haven’t reached the same stratosphere, but they’re on the same hockey-stick trajectory. The Rays sold this year in a $1.7 billion transaction [[link removed]]—despite uncertainty around Tropicana Field.

The Padres were put up for sale [[link removed]], while the Twins recently took on new minority owners [[link removed]] in stake sales that valued the team at $1.75 billion. Other minority-stake sales included a 10% stake in the San Francisco Giants [[link removed]] to PE firm Sixth Street and an undisclosed stake in the Orioles [[link removed]] to venture capital investor Mark Ein. Longtime White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf struck a multistage equity deal with Justin Ishbia [[link removed]] that will see majority control of the franchise transfer no earlier than 2029.

Financial terms for the San Francisco Giants, Orioles, and White Sox deals were not disclosed, but Forbes pegs those teams’ valuations [[link removed]] at $4 billion, $1.9 billion, and $2 billion, respectively.

MLB valuations are lower partly because media rights lag behind. Last month, the league announced [[link removed]] three-year agreements with NBC Sports, Netflix, and ESPN, worth $600 million, $50 million per year, and $550 million per year, respectively.

David Banks-Imagn Images

NHL activity has been lighter. The Lightning sold last year [[link removed]] at a record $1.8 billion valuation. In 2025, it came out that Tom Dundon [[link removed]]—who is buying the Blazers—is in talks to sell a minority stake [[link removed]] in the Hurricanes at a reported $2 billion valuation to fund the NBA deal, while Fenway Sports Group has reached a deal [[link removed]] to sell the Penguins at a reported valuation [[link removed]] between $1.7 billion and $1.8 billion.

In July, Canadian media giant Rogers Communications closed on its $3.5 billion deal to acquire 37.5% of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment [[link removed]], which owns the Maple Leafs, Raptors, and other assets.

Rogers also just signed a 12-year, $8 billion media-rights extension with the NHL stretching to 2038. On the U.S. side, the NHL is in the midst of seven-year, $4.37 billion media-rights deals with Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery.

Will Other Leagues Follow Suit?

As teams in the big four men’s pro leagues continue to see their valuations soar, investors are wondering whether there remain diamonds in the rough elsewhere. Women’s sports is booming [[link removed]], and there are pro leagues for every sport under the sun now, from volleyball [[link removed]] and pickleball [[link removed]] to cheerleading [[link removed]] and flag football [[link removed]].

Valuations across all sports are up—in September, the Los Angeles Beat of the Pro Padel League were purchased in record-setting transaction [[link removed]] worth about $10 million, and before that, a Denver-based group [[link removed]] won the right to launch a new NWSL team with a record-breaking expansion fee of $110 million [[link removed]].

For these and other leagues, “it’s all about addressable market,” Dase of Goldman Sachs said.

Over the summer, John Hutcheson, who co-leads Citi’s sports advisory and financing group, told FOS [[link removed]] there’s a “North Star” for emerging leagues that aspire to entrench themselves in the world of sports.

“There’s huge value if you get the league right and you’re able to create your own, wholly owned league while owning and controlling it top to bottom,” he said.

Of course, that’s no simple task.

“There are very few of scale, and it’s rare to get there,” Hutcheson said. “There are maybe five or six such leagues that are meaningful in size. So if you get there, you’ve really climbed the mountain.”

SPONSORED BY CISCO

The NFL’s Invisible Tech Engine

The NFL looks seamless on Sundays—but behind every replay angle, mobile ticket scan, and moment of fan connectivity sits a powerful tech backbone [[link removed]]. Increasingly, that backbone is Cisco.

From Buffalo to Las Vegas to San Francisco, teams are adopting Cisco’s unified technology platform: AI-ready data centers, modernized workspaces, and digital resilience designed for the pressures of the modern game. Nearly two-thirds of NFL stadiums already rely on Cisco networks, and the Super Bowl will showcase the full scale of the partnership.

The league’s true competitive edge [[link removed]] is now invisible—secure, fast, intelligent infrastructure.

Read more [[link removed]].

Baseball Look-Ahead MLB Is Staring Down a Fractious Year of Labor Talks

Mike Watters-Imagn Images

Major League Baseball is perhaps on the cusp of large-scale economic reformation. How the league gets there, though, will speak volumes on not only its next era, but how well it capitalizes on a current surge in fan interest.

It will be a “labor year” for MLB in 2026, as the current, five-year collective bargaining agreement with the MLB Players Association expires Dec. 1. Talks will begin in earnest well before that, and some preliminary sessions have already occurred.

While the stakes are always high for these rounds of negotiation and they help set the course for how the sport operates, the upcoming bargaining features a set of factors perhaps unprecedented in baseball history. Read more from FOS’s Eric Fisher [[link removed]] on why labor talks are heating up this year—and where they might end up [[link removed]].

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