Why Institutional Investors Now Treat Sports as an Asset Class

For most of the past century, professional sports franchises were bought by wealthy individuals who loved the game. The economics were secondary.

That era is over.

Over the past decade, private equity firms, sovereign wealth funds and multi-strategy asset managers have entered professional sports not as fans but as allocators. They underwrite cash flows, model media rights cycles, stress-test scarcity structures and build positions at the portfolio level. Several of the largest alternative asset managers now have dedicated sports practices.

Understanding why this happened, and why now, is the first question any allocator needs to answer before evaluating sports as an asset class.

Three Structural Shifts Changed the Calculus

The first shift was contracted revenue. Top-tier franchises earn a large share of their revenue from long-term, league-level media contracts. NFL media deals run to 2033, with an opt-out after 2029 (TheWrap). Each club received $453.2 million of national revenue in fiscal 2026 (Green Bay Packers FY2026 financials). Premier League international rights alone are worth more than £1.37 billion a season (BBC). This contracted revenue, not discretionary consumer spending, became the foundation institutional investors were looking for.

The second shift was governance. Leagues began formalizing rules for institutional participation. The NBA approved private equity ownership in 2021. The NFL followed in August 2024. These changes turned the buyer pool for sports assets from a closed network of individuals into a broader, still selective market where institutional capital could participate under clear governance rules.

The third shift was scarcity discipline. The number of franchises in major professional leagues is effectively fixed. The NFL has had 32 teams since 2002. The Premier League has 20 clubs. Expansion is rare and deliberate. While demand for sports ownership has grown, from individual buyers to family offices, private equity and sovereign wealth, the supply of assets has not. Leagues enforce that imbalance as policy. Franchise values have risen about 13% a year since the early 1960s, about 2.5 points ahead of US equities.‡

Why This Matters for Allocators

These three shifts did not just make sports more attractive. They made it analyzable. When institutions enter a market, they bring underwriting frameworks, comparable-transaction data and governance standards. Price discovery improves. Valuation methods stabilize. The asset class matures. That process has been under way in sports for several years, and it is still early compared with where private equity and real estate were after their own institutional phases.

For advisors and allocators, the practical question is no longer whether sports has become a legitimate institutional category; the capital flows have answered that. The question is what the opportunity looks like after the first wave of institutional buyers.

The Opportunity Is Not Where Everyone Is Looking

Most coverage of institutional sports investment focuses on the highest-profile assets: NFL franchises trading at multi-billion-dollar valuations and NBA teams whose recent sales reset expectations across the league. These are real and important data points. But they are a narrow slice of a much larger economy.

The sports economy includes not only franchise ownership but the technology that leagues and teams run on, media and services businesses, real estate anchored to stadium districts, and emerging leagues in early commercial development. Institutional capital has concentrated at the marquee end. In the broader sports economy, competition for deals is less intense.

The Champion Fund was built on this thesis: not to compete for the most contested assets in sports, but to invest across the sports economy where institutional discipline has arrived before institutional crowding.

The Institutional Treatment Is the Starting Point

Sports has earned its place as a portfolio asset category. Contracted revenue, the scarcity structure, governance changes and the depth of institutional capital now engaged have established it as a serious allocation. What remains is understanding how it creates value, where the differentiated opportunities sit, and how to access them.

The rest of this series explains each of these.

‡ Ross-Arctos Sports Franchise Index (RASFI), University of Michigan Ross School of Business and Arctos Partners. Launch release, BusinessWire, June 2024: North American "Big 4" franchise values have risen about 13% a year since the early 1960s, about 2.5 points ahead of US equities. RASFI measures franchise appreciation only and is not a proxy for a multi-category sports portfolio. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

This content is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice or an offer to buy or sell any security. Past performance is not indicative of future results. All investments involve risk, including the potential loss of principal. Please read The Champion Fund's prospectus carefully before investing.