CNBC released its 2026 Most Valuable Sports Empires ranking Thursday, pegging the world's top 20 sports ownership groups at a combined $269 billion. The list tracks consolidated portfolios—not individual franchises—and arrives six months after the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan added a second European football stake and three weeks before the anticipated close of a Saudi PIF minority position in a unnamed Premier League club.
The methodology mirrors CNBC's prior franchise work but aggregates holdings. Real Madrid tops the soccer valuations at $7.5 billion, with Barcelona second. No MLS club appears in the global top ten. The empire rankings weight controlling stakes; minority positions under 20% are excluded unless the holder exercises board influence. That structure matters for family offices comparing a 15% slice of a $4 billion NBA team against outright ownership of a $900 million Championship side.
The $269 billion figure represents a 14% increase over CNBC's 2024 empire tally, though the 2024 list included 18 groups and this year's expands to 20. Strip out the two additions and the like-for-like growth is closer to 11%, in line with private equity return assumptions baked into the handful of PE-backed sports SPACs that survived the 2022 rout. Worth noting: the increase trails the S&P 500's 18-month run but leads commercial real estate, the comp most family offices used when they started buying stakes in 2018.
Two forces explain the appetite. First, leagues lifted ownership restrictions. MLB now permits private equity stakes up to 15% per club; the NBA is weighing a similar threshold after blocking PE through 2023. Second, the revenue grew predictable. U.S. broadcast deals run seven to eleven years; European football's top five leagues signed deals averaging nine-year terms since 2021. An allocator sizing a $200 million commitment sees contracted cash flows, not gate receipts.
The ranking also signals where capital is rotating. Multi-club ownership—one group holding teams across leagues or geographies—appears in 13 of the 20 empires, up from nine in 2024. City Football Group's model, which runs Manchester City and stakes in eight other clubs, is now the template. That structure lets an owner monetize IP across time zones, sell the same sponsor into three markets, and shift player costs between balance sheets when one league's FFP rules tighten. The billionaire buying a single club is now the exception.
Missing from the list: any Chinese group. Fosun, Suning, and others who entered European football between 2016 and 2019 have since sold or reduced stakes. Their absence leaves a hole for Middle Eastern sovereign funds, which now hold positions in five of the top 20 empires. The PIF's Newcastle United purchase in 2021 was the starting gun; Qatar Sports Investments' PSG remains the bellwether. The next move to watch is whether Abu Dhabi divests a City Football Group minority stake to a North American pension fund, a structure that's been shopped quietly since March.
CNBC's list doesn't disclose EBITDA multiples, but prior franchise reports pegged NBA teams at 9-11x and Premier League clubs at 7-9x. The range matters because it defines what a buyer can justify. An empire trading at a blended 8.5x needs line-of-sight to margin expansion—through media rights, through sponsorship, or through cost discipline—to satisfy a CFO who could alternatively buy a software rollup at 12x with contracted ARR.
The timing of the release is relevant. Two sports investment conferences are scheduled for July, one in London and one in New York. The London event draws sovereign wealth; the New York event draws family offices and fundless sponsors. CNBC's numbers will circulate as the pitch-deck comp set. Expect revised waterfalls and a few LP decks to append the empire list as Exhibit C.
Real Madrid's $7.5 billion valuation excludes the club's stadium naming rights, which remain unsold. That optionality is worth tracking. If Madrid monetizes naming at a $400-500 million upfront payment, the valuation resets and every other top-10 club's board starts the same conversation. The likely bidder is a Gulf logistics company or a cryptocurrency exchange attempting a reputation rehab. The deal structure will be a 20-year term with annual escalators, and it will close before the Club World Cup final in July 2027.
The takeaway
Multi-club empires now dominate the top 20; watch for sovereign funds shopping City Football Group minority stakes to North American pensions.
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