Super Bowl Winning Team Head Coach and MVP Press Conference

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes (Photo by Don Juan Moore/Getty Images)

Private equity is eating sports

Private equity firms may soon own your favorite football franchise.

Jack Raines

4/22/24 10:14AM

If you think private equity is eating everything, you're right.

Thursday, the Financial Times reported that private equity firms have been preparing funds to invest exclusively in the NFL. This marks a huge shift for the NFL, as it’s the only major American sports league without institutional investors.

Pitchbook published an excellent report in January breaking down private equity ownership stakes in the NBA, MLB, MLS, and NHL, showing that 31 teams across the four leagues have some level of private equity ownership.

Why are private equity firms interested in owning NFL teams? Because they are lucrative businesses, and team valuations have been soaring thanks to the league’s latest media rights contract.

Unlike other professional sports, such as baseball, where local media deals control the distribution of some games, all NFL games are packaged into league-wide deals with an equal revenue-sharing agreement between clubs.

In 2021, the NFL signed an 11-year, $110B contract that would begin in the 2023 season, and last season, each team took home roughly $400M from the league’s media and sponsorship deals.

Last year, Apollo Global Management cofounder Josh Harris bought the Washington Commanders for $6.05B last year, the highest price ever paid for any professional team in any league.

Rich, stable cash flows make NFL teams prized assets, but soaring valuations have reduced the number of qualified individuals that could afford a stake. Private equity firms, however, have billions of dollars to deploy, making them prime candidates to invest.

According to the Financial Times, the NFL is asking firms to create "American football-only funds" that wouldn't be able to invest in other sports leagues.

Max Knoblauch5/29/26

The Trump administration is reportedly planning a 50% made-in-America requirement for USMCA tariff relief

Qualifying for USMCA-related lower tariffs may soon require more US-made vehicle components, according to reporting by The Wall Street Journal.

The Trump administration is reportedly planning to introduce a 50% US content requirement for vehicles covered by the trade pact to receive lower tariffs. The content would be measured by cost, according to the WSJ.

There currently isn’t any US-specific requirement for those lower tariff rates, but in order to receive preferential tariffs, vehicles are must contain at least 75% regional content (components made in North America). Per Reuters reporting, the Trump admin is seeking to raise the regional requirement to 82%.

These reported plans are subject to change as the US negotiates USMCA terms with Mexico over the next few months.

Overall, Tesla will likely have the easiest time qualifying for any stricter requirements. The automaker’s vehicles contained the highest amount of US/Canadian content in 2025, according to American University research. Ford, GM, and Stellantis all scored lower.

Notably: the underlying government data that many domestic content measurements rely on intentionally combines US and Canadian components, so it’s difficult to know exactly how much of any given vehicle is specifically US-made.

Exclusive | Trump Administration Wants Autos Under USMCA to Be at Least 50% Made in America

These reported plans are subject to change as the US negotiates USMCA terms with Mexico over the next few months.

Tom Jones5/29/26

The $640,000 Luce makes the average Ferrari look like a bargain

Put aside the shape; put aside the smoothing out of Ferrari’s iconic sharp edges; put aside, even, the calls from former Chairman and President Luca Cordero di Montezemolo to “take the Prancing Horse off.” On the grounds of price alone, Luce detractors might have a point.

By now, many of us will have read the criticisms of Ferrari’s first fully electric vehicle, as the Luce — which was unveiled to the world earlier this week and promptly saw the company’s shares crash out in New York and Milan — gets subtly shaded by competitors online and not-so-subtly shaded by basically everyone else.

What makes all of this worse for Ferrari is that, even by the luxury car maker’s notoriously high standards, they’ve slapped a pretty hefty price tag on the Luce, and the company’s CEO, Benedetto Vigna, has already been forced to defend the €550,000 ($640,000) price point, saying yesterday that it’s “fair to pay for innovation,” per Reuters.

While Ferrari’s cars have been getting more expensive of late, as recently as 2022, Ferrari’s average revenue per car sold was around $340,000. At nearly twice that price, this new electric model is obviously proving a little much (visually, conceptually, and financially) for many loyal and long-standing fans of the Prancing Horse to stomach.