Roger Goodell, commissioner of the National Football League, after the morning session at the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, on July 10, 2024.
Kevork Djansezian | Getty Images
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in an exclusive interview with CNBC on Thursday that the league is considering allowing minority equity ownership of up to 10% of its 32 teams.
“As the sport evolves, we want to make sure that our policies reflect that,” Goodell told CNBC’s Julia Boorstin at Allen & Co.’s annual Sun Valley conference. “We’ve had a tremendous amount of interest[from private equity firms]and we think that might make sense for us on a limited scale, maybe no more than 10% of the team. That’s something that we think might complement our ownership and support our ownership policies.”
Goodell said the NFL hopes to have new ownership policies in place by the end of the year. He said the 10% cap would be a starting point and that the league was open to raising it in due course.
While other major U.S. sports leagues, including the National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League and Major League Soccer, allow private equity ownership of up to 30%, the NFL has resisted taking money from institutional funds, such as private equity, preferring that limited partners be individuals or families.
WATCH: NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell Discusses Ownership Policies, International Expansion
But franchise valuations have steadily risen as the NFL has signed lucrative media deals, meaning fewer people can afford to own the team. In 2023, Josh Harris, co-founder of private equity firm Apollo Global Management, led a group that paid $6.05 billion to buy the Washington Commanders — the largest sum ever spent on a U.S. professional sports franchise.
“Unless you’re among the 50 richest people (in the world), writing a $5 billion check is very difficult for anyone,” Harris said in an interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Box” co-host Andrew Ross Sorkin at the CNBC CEO Summit in Washington, D.C., last month.
Harris has enlisted 20 people to help raise money for his bid, including former basketball star Magic Johnson, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and David Blitzer, the Blackstone Group executive who previously partnered with Harris to buy the Philadelphia 76ers and the New Jersey Devils.
“Raising this amount of capital was unique; it had never been done before,” Harris said. “I think it could lead to a rethink of whether private equity, for example, or institutional investors should be allowed to invest in the NFL.”
The NWSL allows private equity firms to acquire a majority stake in its franchise, unlike other professional sports leagues in the United States. The incentives private equity firms offer around investment targets and exit thresholds could change ownership motivations in ways that make larger sports leagues uncomfortable.
Minority stakes typically come with decision-making power over the team. This would likely be convenient for the NFL if it allowed private equity investors, but it also limited the number of individuals interested in taking smaller stakes in teams.
“These people are really rich and successful. They used to be the center of the universe. Now you say, ‘I need a quarter of a billion dollars. Great, what do I get? Nothing,’” Ted Leonsis, owner of the Washington Capitals, Wizards and Mystics, told ESPN in May. “Do you have any control? Any role? No, you’re passive investors. You’re going to put your name on a website somewhere or something and you’re going to be able to tell people I own part of an NFL team.”
Private equity firms, tasked with finding investment vehicles to generate returns on assets under management, may be better suited to minority ownership.
