Yes, it feels inevitable that the NFL eventually will say yes to foreign investment.
In the wake of the effort by the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund to basically take over the PGA Tour, the Qatar Investment Authority could soon have an ownership stake in the NBA’s Washington Wizards.
Via Mike Vorkunov of TheAthletic.com, the group will buy a piece of Monumental Sports and Entertainment, which owns among other things the Wizards.
The reportedly “small stake” values the company at $4 billion. It also requires approval of the NBA’s Board of Governors. Although foreign ownership of an NBA team is unprecedented, the league has opened the door to it.
“In November 2022, the NBA Board of Governors decided to permit passive, non-controlling, minority investments in NBA teams by institutional investors, including university endowments, foreign and domestic pension funds, and sovereign wealth funds, subject to a set of policy guidelines adopted at that time,” an NBA spokesman told TheAthletic.com. “All such investments require league review, NBA Board approval and compliance with the policy.”
The NFL currently allows individual ownership only, but there has been talk of expanding the universe of potential ownership interests to counter the struggles associated with finding individuals having enough cash to buy at least 30 percent of a team from the get-go.
Ultimately, money will drive these decisions. Even if the NFL will insist that it wants no foreign investment, the right foreign investment with the right amount of money will get the NFL to change its position on the subject at the right time, even if means doing an about-face even more quickly than it did when it changed its position on gambling from “hate” to “love.”
