Owning a sports team has long been goal of the ultra-rich but expanding it 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—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, NBA, NFL and NHL teams 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 cut off this year was $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 the purchase of the Washington Commanders by Josh Harris last July for a record $6.05 billion.. HBSE now effectively runs a group of assets that includes many of the world’s most popular sports—NFL (Commanders), NBA (Philadelphia 76ers), NHL (New Jersey Devils), English Premier League (Crystal Palace), Nascar (Joe Gibbs Racing), and youth sports (Ripken Baseball).

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