In the past decade, an astronomical amount of money has been invested in sport. Some teams are very lucky to have owners that don’t consider money a problem when it comes to performance. We were curious who those people are, so we’ve put out a list with 5 of the wealthiest sport investors.
1.Steve Ballmer – L.A. Clippers
Ballmer, 59 years old, is an american businessman who was the chief executive officer of Microsoft for 14 years, between 2000 and 2014. According to Forbes 400, Ballmer had a personal wealth estimated at $22.7 billion.
In 2014, after a racist scandal in NBA, he bought Los Angeles Clippers, a team with superstars as Chris Paul
or Blake Griffin, for $2 billion from the Sterling family. It was the highest bid for a sports franchise in North American sport history, after the $2.15 billion sale of the Los Angeles Dodgers (MLB) in 2012.
2. Paul Allen – Portland Trail Blazers ; Seattle Seahawks ; Seattle Sounders FC
He is better known as the co-founder of Microsoft, along with Bill Gates. Allen has a fortune of $17.5 billion and is marked as the51th richest man in the world, so there’s no wonder that he’s one of the wealthiest sport investors. The 62 years old businessman began investing in sport in 1988, when he bought NBA team Portland Trail Blazers from Larry Weinberg for $70 million.
An excellent deal, considering that the Blazers are worth $940 right now. In 1996, he purchased the Seattle Seahawks NFL team for $194 mllion. Now, after three championships won, they’re worth $1.3 billion. Allen is also part of the ownership that control Seattle Sounders FC, a team that plays in the MLS franchise from 2009.
3. Mikhail Prokhorov – Brooklyn Nets
Prokhorov is a 50 years old russian billionaire politicianthat owns NBA team Brooklyn Nets. He has an estimated net wealth of $10.9 billion and $200 million were spend in 2010 to buy 80% of the Nets, so we considered that he deserves a spot in our wealthiest sport investors list.
He also acquired 45% interest in the Barclays Center arena. The team moved to the new arena in 2012 and changed
her name from New Jersey Nets to Brooklyn Nets
4. Roman Abramovich – Chelsea FC
The 48 years old Russian businessman is one of the first soccer club owners that realised that if you want to win big, then the investments must be as well. Since 2003, when he bought the English side, Abramovich spent almost $ 1.5 million.
The 12th richest man in Russia has a fortune of $9.1 billion and it’s currently considered one of the wealthiest sport investors.
5. Philip Anschutz
The 75 years old businessman, Anschutz, was the co-founder of MLS and has stokes at multiple soccer teams, like L.A. Galaxy, Colorado Rapids, Houston Dynamo, San Jose Earthquakes, D.C United or Chicago Fire.
With a fortune estimated at $11 billion, he also is implicated at L.A Lakers (NBA) or L.A. Kings (NHL).
