$3 billion. That is what Michael Jordan’s stake in the Charlotte Hornets was worth when he sold it in 2023 — roughly ten times what he paid for majority control in 2010. The Hornets never won more than a single playoff series under his ownership. The team was still the best investment of his post-playing career, by a wide margin.
Jordan is the most famous case, but he is no longer the only one. A growing roster of current and former athletes have quietly stopped treating team ownership as a retirement hobby and started treating it as the actual plan — buying equity in the leagues that made them famous while they still have the leverage, the relationships, and the capital to do it. Some hold outright control. Most hold a slice. All of them are betting the same way: that a stake in a franchise compounds long after the sport stops paying them to play it.
Here is who owns what, and why it matters more than any single contract.
Michael Jordan — The Blueprint
Jordan bought majority control of what was then the Charlotte Bobcats in 2010 for $275 million, becoming the NBA’s first former player to hold majority ownership of a franchise — and its first Black majority owner. He rebranded the team the Hornets in 2014 and ran it for 13 mostly unremarkable seasons on the court.
None of that mattered to the exit. In 2023, Jordan sold his majority stake to a group led by Gabe Plotkin and Rick Schnall — joined by Daniel Sundheim, Ian Loring, and investors including rapper J. Cole and country singer Eric Church — at an approximate $3 billion valuation. He kept a minority stake. The math: a 13-year hold that returned roughly 10x on the purchase price, on top of whatever he’d already made from Nike. (Full breakdown: Michael Jordan Net Worth 2026: How the $90M Career Salary Became a $4.3 Billion Fortune.)
LeBron James — Buying Into Fenway
James has never owned an NBA team. His ownership exposure runs through a minority stake in Fenway Sports Group, a partnership he entered in 2011 — years before “athlete turned owner” was a well-worn career arc. FSG’s holdings include the Boston Red Sox, Liverpool FC, the Pittsburgh Penguins, and part of RFK Racing’s NASCAR operation.
It is a smaller, quieter bet than Jordan’s Hornets purchase, but it has compounded in the background for over a decade alongside his SpringHill Company and his lifetime Nike deal — together the reasons James became the first active NBA player to reach billionaire net worth. (Full breakdown: LeBron James Net Worth 2026: Inside the $1.4 Billion Business Empire.)
Magic Johnson — The Deepest Portfolio in Sports
No athlete-turned-owner has spread the bets wider than Magic Johnson. He was part of the $2 billion group that bought the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2012, became a part-owner of the WNBA’s LA Sparks and MLS’s LAFC in 2014, and has since added stakes in the NWSL’s Washington Spirit and — through Josh Harris’s ownership group — a 4% stake in the NFL’s Washington Commanders, having invested a reported $242 million when that $6.05 billion sale closed in 2023.
Four leagues, four different sports, one portfolio. It’s a major reason Johnson’s net worth sits at roughly $1.6 billion today — ahead of several athletes who earned far more during their playing careers.
Alex Rodriguez — From Yankees Contract to NBA Governor
Rodriguez and business partner Marc Lore agreed to buy the Minnesota Timberwolves and the WNBA’s Minnesota Lynx from Glen Taylor for $1.5 billion in 2021. What followed was a four-year fight: Taylor tried to back out of the deal, and the dispute went to arbitration before the NBA Board of Governors finally approved the sale to Lore and Rodriguez.
Rodriguez is now the franchise’s alternate governor, with Lore serving as governor — a former MLB star turned NBA decision-maker, sitting on the other side of the table from the front offices he used to negotiate against as a player.
Serena Williams — Dolphins and Angel City FC
Williams and her sister Venus have held a minority stake in the NFL’s Miami Dolphins since 2009 — one of the longest-running athlete ownership positions in this list, and one that predates most of the current wave by more than a decade. In 2020, Williams joined the investment group behind Angel City FC, the NWSL expansion club that became one of the most valuable franchises in women’s soccer within a few years of kickoff. (Full breakdown: Serena Williams Net Worth 2026: Richest Female Athlete.)
Kevin Durant — Building Across Three Continents
Durant bought a 5% stake in MLS’s Philadelphia Union, later joined the ownership group behind Paris Saint-Germain, and expanded into women’s soccer as part of the group behind NWSL’s Gotham FC. It’s a distinctly global bet compared to most of this list — Durant’s equity sits across American soccer, European soccer, and the NWSL simultaneously, treating team ownership the way a diversified investor treats an index fund.
Patrick Mahomes — The Kansas City Portfolio
Mahomes has built the broadest local footprint on this list without leaving his adopted hometown: stakes in the Kansas City Royals (MLB), Kansas City Current (NWSL) and Sporting Kansas City (MLS), plus a stake in Formula 1’s Alpine team and other investments including the Miami Pickleball Club. He is still an active NFL quarterback — the equity is accumulating well before his playing career ends, not after it.
David Beckham — The Expansion Play That Paid Off
Beckham took a different route: rather than buying into an existing franchise, he co-founded one. His 2007 LA Galaxy contract included an option to buy an MLS expansion franchise at a fixed, below-market price — a clause few noticed at the time. He exercised it in 2018, launching Inter Miami CF alongside Jorge and Jose Mas. The value of that early option became obvious in 2023, when Beckham’s club signed Lionel Messi and Inter Miami’s valuation jumped accordingly. (See how that move fits into Messi’s own business empire.)
The Rest of the Roster
The list keeps growing. Dwyane Wade holds stakes in the Utah Jazz, the WNBA’s Chicago Sky, and Real Salt Lake. Shaquille O’Neal became a minority owner of the Sacramento Kings in 2013. More athletes join every offseason, across more leagues, earlier in their careers than the generation before them did.
Why This Beats a Paycheck
The pattern across every name on this list is the same one that shows up whenever an athlete builds wealth that outlasts their playing career: none of them are counting on a salary to make them rich. Most pro athletes don’t build lasting wealth at all — nearly 80% of NFL retirees face serious financial trouble within two years of leaving the league. The athletes who avoid that outcome tend to share one habit: they stop thinking of their playing income as a wage and start treating it as capital to deploy.
A contract pays out over a few years and then stops. An ownership stake in a franchise — especially one bought before a league’s valuations take off, the way Beckham’s Inter Miami option did or Jordan’s 2010 Hornets purchase did — can keep compounding for decades after the last game is played. That is the actual lesson buried in this list: the biggest financial move most of these athletes ever made wasn’t a contract negotiation. It was deciding to sit on the other side of the table.
Related reading on Absolute Baller:
- Michael Jordan Net Worth 2026: The $4.3 Billion Fortune
- LeBron James Net Worth 2026: Inside His $1.4B Empire
- Richest Athletes in the World by Net Worth: 2026 Rankings
- Serena Williams Net Worth 2026: Richest Female Athlete
- Lionel Messi Net Worth 2026: Inside the $1.1 Billion Empire He Built Alongside Football
- Why Pro Athletes Go Broke: The Financial Traps
- The World’s 10 Highest-Paid Athletes in 2026