Тамирчдын спортын баг эзэмших хандлага: Үнэн ба бодит байдал

Travis Kelce is a three-time Super Bowl champion and the soon-to-be husband of the planet’s preeminent pop star, Taylor Swift. He’s a record-setting NFL tight end and a podcast host regularly hounded by paparazzi. Last month, however, Kelce was back home in Northeast Ohio to celebrate his latest title: minority stakeholder in the Cleveland Guardians.

It’s a logical union, given Kelce hails from Cleveland Heights, about seven miles from the ballpark he frequented as a kid. He would ride the rapid transit downtown, pass through the turnstiles and keep score from his seat.

This sort of cross-sport entanglement — part player, part owner — has become increasingly common in recent years, and MLB clubs have embraced the trend. Kelce’s quarterback, Patrick Mahomes, owns a stake in the Kansas City Royals. In the NBA, Giannis Antetokounmpo is a minority investor in the Milwaukee Brewers, Cade Cunningham bought into his hometown Texas Rangers, and LeBron James has a stake in the Boston Red Sox through his investment in Fenway Sports Group.

Yet, as active NFL and NBA stars scoop up equity in MLB franchises, the reverse arrangement — baseball’s biggest names making mid-career forays into ownership in Big Four leagues — has failed to materialize.

The 24-year-old Cunningham has a stake in MLB’s Rangers, but New York Yankees captain Aaron Judge, a future Hall of Famer with $400 million in guaranteed salary, doesn’t own a piece of the NHL’s Rangers. MLB’s first $500 million man, Mike Trout, is a Philadelphia Eagles fanatic but not a shareholder. Instead, his money helped sculpt a golf course in his hometown.

Mookie Betts owns a team … in the World Bowling League.

Betts, the superstar shortstop of the back-to-back-champion Los Angeles Dodgers, is supportive of high-profile athletes entering MLB ownership circles. “It’s good to kind of keep it in the family,” he said, and it sends a positive signal about the sport’s popularity.

Why haven’t baseball players followed suit?

“You can be really baseball famous,” Betts said, “but you just are never really going to pull the same weight as a guy that plays football or basketball. I mean, it’s just a fact.”

For active athletes, limited partnership in pro sports franchises is a multi-faceted pursuit: an investment-portfolio diversifier, a potential pathway to principal ownership after their playing days, and a trophy asset. With club valuations climbing, eyeing the standings can be an even greater thrill ride than the stock market. But there is this: You have to be really, really rich.

The Athletic surveyed a handful of well-compensated MLB stars in recent weeks about their interest in pro sports ownership. Presented with that premise, Yankees first baseman Paul Goldschmidt, a former MVP who has made nearly $200 million in salary, deadpanned: “I don’t think I can afford that.”

Bryce Harper can. By the end of his current contract — a 13-year, $330 million pact that was once the largest deal in baseball history — Harper will be among the 10 highest-paid MLB players of all time, according to Spotrac.

Harper would like to own part of an MLB franchise one day and run its baseball operations, like the setups Derek Jeter had with the Miami Marlins and Buster Posey now holds with the San Francisco Giants. In fact, Harper has already picked a manager: his Philadelphia Phillies teammate Kyle Schwarber.

“I was messing with him about that,” Harper said. “I’m like, ‘Dude, you’re going to be the best manager. If I ever own a team, you’re going to manage my team.’”

While Schwarber gives Harper grief for his grandiose plans, the idea of owning a team is a common conversation in clubhouses around the league.

“As athletes, a lot of us wonder what it would be like,” said retired six-time All-Star José Bautista, who is now principal owner of Las Vegas Lights FC, a franchise in the second tier of U.S. soccer leagues. It’s a particularly thorny topic for MLB players to discuss publicly at the moment, as the league and players’ union are locked in a contentious labor battle.

One All-Star, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the subject candidly, shrugged off Kelce’s investment as primarily a public-relations play — one benefitting both the global NFL star and MLB’s ownership class.

“The thing that would appeal to me is if I was worth $7 billion and I was actually in the market for a team,” the player said. “You want tickets? Social-media following? I don’t know. I don’t see any positives of, like, owning a half of a percentage and throwing out the first pitch.”

That sentiment, however, is hardly universal among players.

Several active MLB players have shares in non-Big Four leagues. Soccer has been a popular pathway for them to test their business savvy. Manny Machado is a founding partner of the NWSL franchise San Diego FC. Justin Verlander and his wife, Kate Upton, are investors in two clubs, Colombian squad Inter Bogota and Mexico’s Club Necaxa. Matt Chapman owns a tiny sliver of the English Premier League side Leeds United.

Machado, who grew up a Lionel Messi fan in metro Miami, began seriously pursuing investment opportunities in soccer around the time he inked a 10-year, $300 million deal with the San Diego Padres in February 2019 — the largest contract in American sports history until Harper signed a week later. San Diego was awarded an NWSL expansion franchise in 2023. It was a perfect fit, Machado said, to help fund an enterprise that would enrich the community in his new home city.

“You want to put your money into things that matter,” he said.

Because the MLB and NWSL seasons run simultaneously, Machado attends some San Diego FC games with his family but is more heavily involved in the offseason. From the outset, he told club leadership that baseball was his top priority, yet he’d help whenever possible with promotion and lending insight from his vantage point as both athlete and investor. Machado, 35, said he hopes to play a larger role once his MLB career winds down.

The clock, the tick-tock reminder of both an athlete’s dwindling supply of free time and the urgency of a closing career window, is a factor driving some to wait for retirement to buy equity in pro sports franchises. They’d prefer involvement over passive investment. Retired athletes investing in clubs is not a new phenomenon: from Magic Johnson to Michael Jordan, Tom Brady to David Beckham, Dwyane Wade to Shaquille O’Neal, Nolan Ryan to Alex Rodríguez.

Over the years, there were occasional examples of athletes owning stakes in teams before their playing careers ended — Serena and Venus Williams (Miami Dolphins), Aaron Rodgers (Milwaukee Bucks), Lewis Hamilton (Denver Broncos), and Mario Lemieux (Pittsburgh Penguins) and Jordan (Washington Wizards) before their respective comebacks — but never at the current rate.

If Harper were approached about buying into a team in another league, he’d listen.

“At the end of the day,” he said, “I’d love to do it here (in Philadelphia).”

The dream he can envision more clearly, though, is one in which he remains in baseball: taking on new challenges within an organization, calling the shots from the big office at the end of the hall. Ownership appeals to Harper both as a sound investment and a way to quench his competitive thirst after hanging up his spikes.

“Some guys kind of spiral,” Harper said. “They’re like, What am I going to do with my life?”

He thinks about different hats he could wear, like coaching college baseball — a level of the sport he relishes for its rawness and unbridled fun. Buying into an MLB club and running its baseball operations would be another hat to try on. It would also represent an asset he could potentially pass down to his children.

“To play for 20 years would be awesome,” Harper said. “But you can be an owner for 60-plus years.”

Throughout his evolution from Rule 5 cast-off to the bat-flipping playoff hero dubbed “Joey Bats,” Bautista wanted to leave a legacy off the field, too.

His mother, Sandra, was an accountant, and conversations he overheard as a kid piqued his interest in finance. While emerging as one of MLB’s most feared sluggers, Bautista got a business degree from the University of South Florida. He peppered his teams’ general managers and business and marketing executives with questions to gain a grasp of how organizations function. He invested in Marucci, the producer of the bats he famously flung.

Bautista said he had a few dozen opportunities to invest in sports franchises during his playing career, though rarely was it an ownership group contacting him directly — think of it more as an opportunity getting passed around the investing community. None felt like the right fit.

“Sometimes I was going to be 0.00001 percent owner,” Bautista said. “Sometimes they just needed money. Sometimes they didn’t want opinion, feedback or questions. There’s always a different reason why.”

‘It’s a challenging and exciting world to navigate,’ José Bautista said of owning a sports franchise. (Courtesy of Las Vegas Lights FC)

Bautista was searching for a long-term project. Even if he wasn’t a club’s control person, he wanted access to the rooms where decisions were made. After retiring in 2023 and expanding his business portfolio — a training center, a coffee company, a financial advisory firm — Bautista began circling the United Soccer League. He studied the league’s growth and potential future trajectory. Then a friend introduced him to the then-owner of the Las Vegas franchise, who was looking to sell.

“I felt like I knew enough to be dangerous,” Bautista said. “I knew the right questions to ask. I could put a team together, build a staff and try to build a culture. So, I rolled the dice and got the deal done in Vegas.”

For the active athlete interested in buying a small percentage of a pro sports franchise, Bautista preaches patience — both with the acquisition process and the return on investment.

“If they just want to have the allure of a trophy asset and a conversation piece, those are not the right reasons to get involved,” he said. “You’ve got to want to affect the outcome of your investment by providing value with your involvement, attaching your name to it and doing whatever it takes to grow the team. If you do that, everybody benefits, not just you.”

Then again, there are more than 2,000 partners across the Big Four leagues, and not every investor needs to be involved. Passive investors have a good time, too.

Chapman played soccer as a kid but only casually followed the sport — “Me calling it soccer shows I’m not the biggest fan,” he said — before attending a Chelsea-Arsenal match opened his eyes to the Premier League.

When 49ers Enterprises, the investment arm of the San Francisco 49ers, was preparing a bid for Leeds United in 2023, Chapman’s team of financial advisors asked if he wanted in. Chapman was oblivious to most details of the club sale, yet trusted the expertise of his advisors and “knew it was something that could be a win-win for everybody,” he said. Though he’s eight hours behind when home in San Francisco, Chapman catches as many early-morning Leeds matches as he can. It beats tracking the S&P.

“For me, it isn’t as much about the money,” Chapman said, “as it is about being able to have a team that you feel like you not only root for, but are a little bit of a part of.”

Even as franchise sale prices soar, there are more people than ever looking to become limited partners, and more opportunities awaiting them. Most leagues now allow private-equity firms to buy into teams, opening another avenue to athletes, celebrities and other high-net-worth individuals to invest in sports clubs without purchasing a minority stake.

Michael Rapkoch, a franchise valuations expert and president of Sports Value Consulting, cautions new investors to understand what they are bound to by their operating agreement. Few limited partners cash a yearly check from the club. Most invest even more each year in capital calls so as not to risk diluting their equity interest. Tread carefully, and it should pay dividends one day.

“The market can go down, but the value of a team is not going to go down,” Rapkoch said. “The values of teams didn’t go down during COVID. In 20 years, the Cleveland Guardians will be there. I don’t know if some companies I’m investing in in the market will be here in 20 years. Think about that.”

When Kelce arrived for his coronation at Progressive Field last month, fans lined up outside the players’ parking lot and reporters captured grainy video of the new owner of a fraction of the Guardians franchise.

David Blitzer could have danced past and no one would have noticed.

Blitzer, a private-equity magnate with an estimated $4 billion net worth, can assume majority ownership of the Guardians as soon as late next year. He helped negotiate a new contract for the face of the franchise, José Ramírez. He celebrated postseason clinches with owner Paul Dolan and club bigwigs. He has surveyed the land surrounding the stadium for potential investment opportunities. He also spearheaded the addition of Kelce to the bankroll.

Publicly, however, Blitzer has been a ghost.

He has not spoken to reporters since buying an initial stake in the Guardians in 2022. He didn’t attend the news conference announcing Ramírez’s new contract. He hasn’t thrown a first pitch. The Guardians speak about Blitzer as some wealthy distant relative who cuts a check on birthdays and holidays.

So, when a big leaguer grouses that Kelce’s share is a PR play, there’s some truth to it. For Kelce, who has invested in a Formula 1 team, an amusement park company and a beer brand, among other ventures, the partnership further binds him to Cleveland. Blitzer has no ties to the area.

The Guardians planned to parade Kelce around Progressive Field on June 14, before rain spoiled the festivities. He would have tossed a first pitch and visited the home clubhouse and dugout. Instead, he signed autographs for a few fans outside the stadium. But the gates never opened. The game was postponed to September, and, by then, Kelce will be busy with his day job in Kansas City.

If nothing else, having Kelce as a public face will be good for the brand — and that’s no small consideration.

“The brand can help you withstand the losses or first-round exits in the playoffs,” Rapkoch said.

But buying such a stake is far more than just PR.

“You’re writing a check now to get involved that’s much, much larger than it would have been 30 years ago,” said Rob Tilliss, who founded the sports investment bank Inner Circle Sports and has brokered numerous franchise sales. “So, if you’re not thinking about this as an investment, then you’re not thinking about this correctly. When you write that large a check, even for a Kelce that’s a real investment.”

The size of that check is unclear. The terms of Kelce’s minority share have not been disclosed. But say Johnny Quarterback or Bobby Ballplayer wanted to buy a 1 percent stake in a franchise valued at $2 billion. They’d sign the papers and wire $20 million to the general partner … right?

There’s more to the negotiation.

The valuation would come down slightly depending upon two factors: the club’s existing debt and the discount minority owners receive because they won’t have control, Rapkoch explained. Limited partners often structure payment over a few years. Some larger limited partners finance the sale with banks that lend against the value of the interest, Tilliss said. But, by and large, the funds can’t be borrowed.

“No debt,” Rapkoch said. “It’s all cash.”

That’s another reason more athletes-turned-owners are getting into MLB: its (relative) affordability. The Guardians are valued at about $1.7 billion, according to Forbes. The city’s football outfit, the Browns, who have amassed the worst record in the NFL, by far, since their return to the league in 1999, were valued at nearly four times that amount last summer.

MLB’s average franchise valuation is $2.91 billion, according to Forbes, ahead of the NHL ($2.2 billion) but far outpaced by both the NBA ($5.36 billion) and NFL ($7.11 billion) averages. NBA and NFL franchise values benefit from massive media-rights deals and the reality that they, unlike MLB, are salary-cap leagues, which MLB owners argue is what is holding down their valuations. A 1 percent stake — the lower limit most major leagues have on minority shares — in a typical NBA and NFL franchise could be in the range of $50 to $75 million. Few players have that type of spare change.

Most surveyed for this story had only hypotheses as to why MLB players haven’t pulled a Kelce and entered ownership in another Big Four league while still playing. “I’m not really sure,” Machado said. Betts pointed out baseball’s grueling schedule affords players precious little time to craft big plans. Yankees ace Gerrit Cole wondered aloud whether baseball players are wealthy enough to afford a meaningful stake in a franchise.

“I’m not going to complain if it ends up that way,” Goldschmidt said, “but I have no idea what that would entail.”

Inadvertently, almost all touched on perhaps the most compelling point: Baseball players tend to like baseball. And when they think about owning a team, they think about the league they know best.

“I’m not going to go to the NFL and try to own a team and try to run the business on the field like Jerry Jones,” Harper said. “I can’t do that, I don’t know anything about football.”

Dodgers star Mookie Betts in action at his charity bowling event in Los Angeles in 2024. (Mat Hayward / Getty Images)

Betts is a former MVP and four-time World Series champion whose current contract averages more than $30 million in salary per season. His sports investments run the gamut from a startup bowling league to an indoor batting cage experience he compares to “a Topgolf for baseball.” At 33, he’s cognizant his career, like all of them, has an expiration date, and he looks at investments as a bridge to life after baseball.

“I don’t want to be the guy that (realizes) you’re done playing, then tries to figure out what’s next,” Betts said. “It’s really kind of too late by then. So, if I have to do a lot now, I’ll be a little tired, but at least when I’m done playing I’ll have at least a couple stepping stones for me to kind of walk into.”

To this point, Betts has barely thought about pursuing ownership in a Big Four league. If the right opportunity came along, he might be interested, he said. But only once he’s done playing.

In retirement, Bautista could have heaped his savings into the stock market and gone golfing. Instead, as he drives his four daughters to volleyball games around Tampa, Bautista is taking business calls and sweating the small stuff for his soccer team. It’s been an uphill climb for Las Vegas FC. The club sits toward the bottom of the USL Championship table for the second consecutive season, an uncomfortable spot in a league that will adopt a promotion-relegation system in 2028. But Bautista wanted a project.

“It’s a challenging and exciting world to navigate,” he said.

Bautista said his eyes are now more open to ownership opportunities in other leagues, but he’s focused on maximizing the opportunity in Las Vegas first.

“For me,” Bautista said, “it’s (about) having the ability to say: Yes, I was an athlete. I played baseball. I hit a white ball with a round bat for a long time. But I didn’t stop there.”

— Matt Gelb, Katie Woo, Brittany Ghiroli and Jesús Cano contributed to this report.