Dear Bernard,,

Have you ever wanted to own a professional sports team? Not only would it allow you to make the decisions on who to hire, who to fire, who to sign or trade, but also cash those big checks that professional teams seem to take in.

Maybe you don't want to own the whole team and have to take all the criticism from the fans , maybe you just want to be a part owner. An opportunity to share in profits without all the management headaches.

Many affluent people have owned parts of teams. However, what about the rest of us?

The team that comes to mind is the Green Bay Packers. The Green Bay Packers are a publicly owned, nonprofit corporation owned by over 538,000 stockholders. According to Packers.com, they are the only publicly held non-profit franchise in the National Football League (NFL). Since 1923 they have held six public stock offerings, the most recent in 2022.

What about the teams in Major League Baseball (MLB), National Basketball Association (NBA), and the National Hockey League (NHL)? According to CAISGroup.com, these leagues have allowed institutional investing since 2019. Last August, the NFL announced that its owners could also start taking on institutional capital, approving select private equity firms to acquire minority equity stakes in its franchises.

The investments by private equity firms may someday open the door for the average investor to hold equity in professional sports teams. Think of this much like the way you would invest in a mutual fund; allowing you to have equity ownership in companies such as Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and many others. While realistically this may be far into the future, the sale of shares of a sports franchise could be an additional revenue source for the franchise owner. It would also be fun to watch how these teams/funds would be valued based on player trades, records, and other yet to be determined metrics.

In today's world, professional teams generate revenue the following way:

• Media Rights
• Ticket Sales and Concessions
• Premium and VIP Services
• Merchandising and Licensing
• Sponsorships and Advertising
• Player Transfer
• Venue and Event Hosting

If you would like to read more about investing in a professional team, I have placed a link below for you to explore further. Keep in mind, this is not an investment avenue we have available, nor is this in any way a recommendation for you to invest.

Sports Investing

If you have any questions, have investments that you feel need to be reviewed, or just want to talk, please feel free to give us a call.

As always, thanks for reading.