Pricey NFL, NBA ownership stakes push investors to smaller leagues

A version of this article first appeared in the CNBC Sport newsletter with Alex Sherman, which brings you the biggest news and exclusive interviews from the worlds of sports business and media. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox.

Last week, the National Women’s Soccer League awarded a new expansion franchise — in Columbus, Ohio — to an ownership group led by Haslam Sports Group for a fee of $205 million.

This represents a $40 million jump from the $165 million that billionaire Arthur Blank reportedly paid for the league’s Atlanta franchise in November. And that $165 million itself was a jump of $55 million from the reported $110 million fee Denver paid in January of last year.

Rewind to 2022, and the expansion fee for a new NWSL club was just $2 million. 

On the surface, this appears to be a story about the NWSL’s growth. Postseason attendance rose 11% this past season, according to the league. Nearly 1.2 million people watched the NWSL finals, up 22% from a year ago, including a whopping 70% jump in the 18-to-34 demographic, the NWSL said.

It makes sense that investors would want to get in now given the league’s growth trajectory.

But, according to investors and bankers, something else is going on that’s affecting the NWSL’s valuations that has absolutely nothing to do with soccer. It has to do with a trickle-down investment thesis driven by the outsized businesses of the NFL and NBA.

Wealthy investors have long been interested in sports ownership, trophy assets that have also produced outsized returns on investment. The introduction of private equity investment, first adopted in the NFL in 2024, has added to the pool of possible buyers. 

This dynamic is welcome news for the entire professional sports industry, which is also benefiting from another strategic investment play — the anti-artificial intelligence trade. Betting on live events is a counter-strategy for those who want less exposure to the tech in a market driven by AI investments.

That’s helped supercharge valuations of the most valuable sports teams in the U.S. According to CNBC Sport, the average NFL team is now valued at $7.65 billion. In 2010, NFL teams were worth, on average, about $1 billion. 

The average value of an NBA team is now $5.52 billion, 18% higher than a year ago. Fifteen years ago, the average NBA team was worth $369 million. That’s an increase of 1,396%. The S&P 500 is up about 422% over the…