If you are a sports fan and retail shareholder, you might want to invest in your favorite sports teams. The problem in there aren’t many to invest in. Most sports teams are privately held, usually by family ownership groups and rarely hit the market, even if you do have a few billion dollars lying around to buy one yourself.
The most famous publicly held team is the Green Bay Packers and even its stock is closely held by its diehard fans who are only able to purchase stock of the nonprofit Green Bay Football Corporation on rare occasions. The company sold stock to the public in 1923, 1935, 1950, 1997, and 2011, often as a way to improve facilities and expand Lambeau Field. There are 361,169 shareholders holding a total of 5,009,562 shares of stock, and the articles of incorporation prevent any individual from owning more than 200,000 shares.
Holding shares of the Green Bay Football Corporation isn’t much of an investment. Fans typically buy the stock as a show of pride, team support, and bragging rights. The Packers do understand the importance of loyalty. Like retail shareholders who connect a brokerage account and create a free TiiCKER account, Packer backers get a few perks such as special stadium tours and access to rookie practices.
Though not every team is publicly traded, some sports franchises are or are part of a larger company listed on a stock exchange. Here are a few options for individual shareholders to consider if looking to invest in professional sports team.
The Atlanta Braves were part of Liberty SiriusXM Group (Tii:LSXMA) before they were split-off in July. The Braves are now owned by Atlanta Braves Holdings (Tii:BATRA), a separate publicly traded company. Though the Braves are currently the only publicly traded Major League Baseball team to be publicly traded, Toronto-based Rogers Communications (Tii:RCI) has owned the Toronto Blue Jays since 2000. The Cleveland Guardians (formerly the Cleveland Indians) was was briefly traded on Nasdaq in the late 1990s.
Sports fans in New York can invest in Madison Square Garden Sports (Tii:MSGS), the parent company of the New York Knicks, New York Rangers and a handful of minor league and a few esports teams.
Soccer fans and individual investors can take a chance on Manchester United (Tii:MANU), one of the most popular and largest sports team franchises in the world. The team has consistently been near the top of the English Premiere League and have been home to some of the sport’s most popular players, such as Wayne Rooney, Cristiano Ronaldo and Roy Keane, to name a few.
Investors looking to invest in wrestling and mixed martial arts can invest in Endeavor Group (Tii:EDR) and TKO Group Holdings (Tii:TKO) which combined with World Wrestling Entertainment in September.
And while it is rare to find publicly traded sports teams, there are dozens of sports-related categories for retail shareholders to consider, including sporting goods equipment manufacturers and sports clothing companies.