Celebrities are becoming players in the sports world with increasing frequency, trading on their fame and fortune to secure supporting roles as team owners for professional franchises in the U.S. and abroad. It’s a sign that sports teams are being recognized as appreciating assets, no longer as just trophy assets of old-money families and newly minted billionaires.
The higher valuations in more established franchises and leagues mean even small stakes in teams require bigger bank accounts than just a few years ago. Many celebrities may not be able to stroke the type of multibillion-dollar check that sports investment banker extraordinaire Sal Galatioto says it takes to buy a Big 4 team, but they can afford to get a piece of a team by investing less money alongside another coveted asset: a devoted fan base of followers. With their social media accounts and public platforms, stars can exponentially expand a pro team’s reach to new and existing fans.
While most celebrities aren’t buying controlling stakes or taking team management positions, they’ve become more strategic investors over the past decade, Brett Johnson, founder and CEO of sports investment firm Benevolent Capital, tells Fortune.
“We’ve clearly hit a tipping point where I feel strongly that anyone with a balance sheet, including celebrities, [is] looking to have some level of allocation in sports as an asset class,” he says. “If you look at the returns of sports over time, they’re uncorrelated to the general economy, meaning that in good times or bad times, the assets continue to go up and to the right," or appreciate in value.
Many Hollywood names want in on the game; look no further than R&B singer Usher (Cleveland Cavaliers), singer Gloria Estefan (Miami Dolphins), and Destiny's Child singer Michelle Williams (Chicago Sky). Soccer (or football, depending on where in the world you are) is attracting a gold rush of celeb investments in particular: Oscar winners Reese Witherspoon (Nashville SC) and Matthew McConaughey (Austin FC), rapper Drake (Italy’s Venezia FC), actor Ryan Reynolds (Wrexham A.F.C.), musician Ed Sheeran (Ipswich Town F.C.), and comedian Will Ferrell, who has invested in both LA Football Club (LAFC) and English football club Leeds United. That's not to mention the slew of star investors behind women's soccer clubs. The investments are proving to be a winning move for both parties.
It’s always sunny in Wrexham
The sports-related celebrity investment strategy was exploited nearly a century ago as silver-screen luminaries of Hollywood’s Golden Age were cast as promoters or minority shareholders in the Hollywood Stars minor league baseball team of the old Pacific Coast League.
“Celebrities have invested in sports for a long time,” says Robert Tilliss, managing member at sports investment bank Inner Circle Sports, who has worked with “more than a handful” of celebrities buying into sports teams since helping Jay-Z buy a piece of the then New Jersey (now Brooklyn) Nets two decades ago. He tells Fortune that it’s “a mutual benefit where celebrities can enhance their exposure and brand value, and it helps teams derive interest and revenue by having brand ambassadors as owners.”
Perhaps few celebrity owners have done a better job than Reynolds and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia star Rob McElhenney, whom Inner Circle represented in their pandemic purchase of Welsh football team Wrexham A.F.C., the oldest club in Wales and the world's third-oldest professional football team. The actors’ outright ownership of the struggling, down-on-its-luck team is the subject of the Emmy-winning docuseries Welcome to Wrexham, which has magnified, if not glorified, the connection between the entertainment and sports worlds.
The club now has fans around the globe invested in its fate, as it tries to return to the glory of playing in England’s top leagues via a process known as promotion: when teams that win a lower-tier league title are automatically elevated to the next level up on the English football pyramid. Depending on each league’s rules, other top finishing teams may gain automatic promotion or win their way up through playoffs.
The Wrexham Red Dragons have advanced two leagues higher in the three seasons of Reynolds and McElhenney’s tenure. Leagues at the top of the pyramid provide higher revenue streams, mostly thanks to broadcast rights and other advertising, but they’re more competitive, so costs rise as teams upgrade with better players and amenities and make sure the stands and pitch meet more stringent, expensive requirements. There's also the possibility of relegation, or being demoted to a lower league, for a league’s bottom teams at the end of a season.
U.S. teams are seen by some investors as safer investments because they are “closed leagues” with no threat of losing a coveted and lucrative place in the top leagues through poor performance. But other investors, including Reynolds and McElhenny, take a different view: They see a distressed asset that can be nurtured back to the highest levels with the right expertise and strategic investments. That is the dream, buying an undervalued team and turning it into a winner that methodically moves all the way to the top of the pyramid—the English Premier League.
The series is compelling viewing, but also a cautionary tale—the actors have had to spend well north of their initial $2.5 million investment to pay for better players and improve the stadium, among other improvement costs.
A beautiful game
While Reynolds and McElhenny are rank outsiders trying to revitalize a club and community with care, cash, and charm, other celebrity owners are lifelong homer fans of their teams.
After an American investment group took over Ipswich Town F.C. in 2021, Ed Sheeran has become more than just a fan of the local club he grew up with. He’s been the front jersey sponsor for several seasons, and he recently bought a minority stake in the club. “It’s any football fan’s dream to be an owner of the club they support, and I feel so grateful for this opportunity,” Sheeran told the team’s website.
Like Reynolds and McElhenney, he’s used his celebrity to help the club raise its profile, jumping on Zoom to help convince a player to join Ipswich Town just before performing with Taylor Swift. And the new owners have brought fresh life, management, and capital into the club, helping the team earn a return to the top-tier English Premier League this season following 22 years in lower-tier leagues.
“Ed’s a good example of the connection that celebrities are starting to find with the clubs,” said Benevolent Capital’s Johnson, an owner and board member at Ipswich Town. “It’s literally his boyhood club and to see him getting involved, it helps the club kind of punch above its weight class, especially when you get someone like Ed who’s truly so passionate about it.”
Teams today are not only looking for star power, but for celebrities with authentic ties to a city, franchise, or sport. While they can’t all be homegrown supporters like Sheeran, they should at least be fans of the game.
“We’ve been approached by a lot of celebrities who are interested in the sport,” Bennett Rosenthal, lead managing owner of LAFC, tells Fortune. “We get requests all the time. But for us, the most important things [are], if we’re going to bring somebody into our group they have to fit culturally (and) they really have to be authentic fans.”
"The virtuous circle"
Many high-profile stars are also betting on big returns from investing in nascent teams and leagues, with a particular interest in U.S. women’s soccer clubs.
In 2024 alone, actress Elizabeth Banks was announced as a founding owner of Boston’s new National Women’s Soccer League franchise; rapper Jack Harlow joined the ownership group for Racing Louisville; and broadcast journalist and dean of USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism Willow Bay and husband Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger bought a controlling share of Angel City Football Club.
Angel City famously has lots of luminaries among its more than 100 investors, including actress Natalie Portman, who cofounded the club and sits on its board, as well as singer Becky G; actresses Jennifer Garner, Eva Longoria, Jessica Chastain, and America Ferrera; and TV and social media personality Lilly Singh. Women’s sports require much less capital than buying into legacy franchises such as an NFL team (the world’s most valuable league) and may offer greater returns on investment; a new study by Wasserman’s The Collective found that celebrities are almost twice as likely to own NWSL and WNBA teams as opposed to NBA or Major League Soccer (MLS) clubs.
“We wanted members of the community to be on the cap table to democratize ownership, and people who would leverage their networks to support the team—and we’ve really seen that happen,” Bay tells Fortune. “Part of the strategy is advancing equity for women… It’s active support, active investment. They invest in the future of Angel City and the future of women’s soccer, the NWSL, and women’s sports and equity more broadly.”
Regardless of whether celebs are investing in women’s or men’s soccer/football, it helps when they elevate the team’s profile and demonstrate a love for the beautiful game. That’s the kind of partner LAFC’s Rosenthal prefers: “We could get more and more celebrities investing in our club; that’s not the important part. The important part is they’re passionate and they’re supportive and they share that with their fan bases, and that helps drive growth of the game, growth of our club, and growth of the brand. That’s part of the virtuous circle.”
