There are four realistic ways to invest in sports teams: buy shares of a franchise that trades on a public stock exchange, hold a sports-themed ETF or tracking stock, put money into a private equity fund that owns minority stakes in franchises, or participate in a crowdfunding offering tied to a smaller sports venture. The entry price ranges from the cost of one share of stock to private equity minimums in the tens of thousands of dollars, and each route carries very different rules about who can participate, how long your money is locked up, and how it gets taxed.
Buy Stock in a Publicly Traded Team
Only a handful of franchises trade publicly, and any brokerage account can buy them. Manchester United trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker MANU.1CNBC. MANU: Manchester United PLC – Stock Price, Quote and News Atlanta Braves Holdings trades as BATRA and includes the team plus The Battery Atlanta mixed-use development.2Nasdaq. Atlanta Braves Holdings, Inc. Series A Common Stock (BATRA) Stock Price, Quote, News and History Germany’s Borussia Dortmund trades on the Frankfurt exchange as BVB.3Borussia Dortmund. Basic Data – Borussia Dortmund
Because these are public companies, they file regular disclosures covering broadcasting revenue, ticket sales, sponsorships, and merchandise.4U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Public Companies Shareholders can vote at annual meetings and read the quarterly numbers. Most major brokerages charge no commission, so the cost of getting in is essentially one share.
What a share does not buy you is any influence over the roster, the coach, or how the team is run. You are an equity holder, nothing more. The upside is liquidity and price appreciation if the franchise’s valuation rises. Neither MANU nor BATRA has established a pattern of meaningful dividends, so the return thesis rests on the stock price going up, not on income.
Sports ETFs and Tracking Stocks
If a single team feels too narrow, exchange-traded funds spread your money across the broader business of sports: apparel brands, stadium operators, betting platforms, and media companies that pay for broadcast rights. The Roundhill Sports Betting & iGaming ETF (BETZ) and the Gabelli Opportunities in Live and Sports ETF (GOLS) each approach the industry differently. A bad season at any one franchise does not sink the whole fund.
Tracking stocks sit in between. The Formula One Group trades as FWONK within the Liberty Media family and gives you exposure to the commercial rights behind Formula One racing, including race hosting fees, broadcast licensing, and sponsorships. That is closer to owning a slice of a league than a team.
Watch the expense ratio. Broad market index ETFs can cost as little as 0.03% a year, while thematic funds often run between 0.40% and 0.75% or higher.5Fidelity. ETFs vs Mutual Funds: Cost Comparison That fee comes out of fund assets each year and pays for management and administration.6Charles Schwab. ETFs: Expense Ratios and Other Costs
Private Equity Stakes in Franchises
The biggest change in sports investing since 2019 is that major leagues now allow institutional investors to hold passive minority stakes in teams. MLB opened the door first. The NBA, NHL, and MLS followed. The NFL approved private equity participation in August 2024 by a 31-to-1 owner vote, with the tightest limits of any league.
This route is restricted to accredited investors: generally, individuals with a net worth above $1 million excluding their primary residence, or annual income above $200,000.7U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Accredited Investors Minimums at the fund level commonly start between $50,000 and $250,000. These positions are passive by design. There are no board seats, no votes on team operations, and no influence over league decisions.
The appeal is that franchise valuations have climbed faster than most asset classes over the past two decades, and a fund investment lets you ride that appreciation without needing to buy a team outright. The catch is the lockup. Most funds require investors to hold for five to ten years before a liquidity event. The NFL goes further, requiring approved funds to hold for at least six years, invest more than 3% per team, cap any single-team position at 20% of the fund’s committed capital, and have at least $2 billion in total committed capital. Across leagues, individual-fund stakes are capped between 10% (NFL) and 20% (NBA), with aggregate institutional ownership generally held to 30% of any one team. These are league bylaws, not federal rules, and owners have been loosening them.
Crowdfunding Offerings
Federal securities exemptions let people who are not accredited investors buy into sports-related ventures at much smaller dollar amounts. Two frameworks matter.
Regulation Crowdfunding (Reg CF) lets companies raise capital from the public through SEC-registered online portals.8U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Regulation Crowdfunding How much you can invest depends on your income and net worth. If either number is under $124,000, you can invest the greater of $2,500 or 5% of the larger of the two. If both are at or above $124,000, the cap is 10% of the greater number, up to $124,000 total in any 12-month period.9Investor.gov. Updated Investor Bulletin: Regulation Crowdfunding for Investors The SEC adjusts these thresholds periodically.
Regulation A+ allows bigger offerings, up to $20 million under Tier 1 and $75 million under Tier 2 in a 12-month window, and is open to both accredited and non-accredited investors.10U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Regulation A Under either framework, portals cannot hold investor money directly; funds flow through a bank, credit union, or registered broker-dealer that holds them in escrow until the offering hits its target.11SEC.gov. Final Rule: Crowdfunding
In practice, sports crowdfunding tends to involve emerging leagues, athlete-backed ventures, or sports tech startups rather than established franchises. Minimums can start around $100. The risk is substantially higher than buying a share of Manchester United. Most of these companies are early-stage, the shares are illiquid with no secondary market, and losing the entire investment is a realistic outcome.
The Green Bay Packers Exception
The Packers are their own category and worth understanding so you do not mistake them for a template. The team has operated as a publicly owned nonprofit corporation since 1923 and has run six stock sales, most recently in 2022 at $300 per share.12Broadridge. Green Bay Packers Shareholders About 539,000 shareholders hold roughly 5.2 million shares, and individual ownership is capped at 200,000 shares. The shares pay no dividends, cannot be resold on any market, and can only be transferred to family. The purchase works more like a donation that comes with voting rights at the annual meeting than a traditional equity investment. No other major North American franchise uses this structure, and current NFL rules would not permit a new one to.
How Each Route Gets Taxed
The structure you invest through dictates the tax treatment, and the differences are significant.
Publicly traded stocks like MANU and BATRA are taxed like any other equity. Gains on shares held less than a year are taxed at your ordinary income rate; gains on shares held longer than a year are taxed at the long-term capital gains rate of 0%, 15%, or 20% depending on your bracket. Because these stocks pay little to no dividends, the tax picture is mostly about what happens at sale.
Private equity funds are usually structured as limited partnerships, which means you receive a Schedule K-1 each year reporting your share of the fund’s income, deductions, and credits, whether or not cash was distributed to you.13IRS. Partners Instructions for Schedule K-1 (Form 1065) As a limited partner with no material role in team operations, your interest is almost certainly a passive activity under IRS rules.14Internal Revenue Service. Publication 925, Passive Activity and At-Risk Rules
That classification matters most in loss years. Sports PE funds can report paper losses early on, driven by depreciation of player contracts and other intangibles. Those losses only offset other passive income. They cannot reduce your wages or active business income. Unused losses carry forward and become fully deductible when you sell your interest. First-time PE investors are often caught off guard by this, expecting a write-off and discovering they have to wait years to use it. Talking to a tax advisor who handles partnership returns before you commit is worth the cost.
Getting Your Money Back Out
Liquidity varies enormously across these channels, and that is where most planning mistakes happen.
Public stocks and ETFs are the liquid end. You can sell MANU, BATRA, or a sports ETF during any trading session and have cash in your account the next day.
Private equity is the other extreme. A sports PE fund usually runs about ten years with possible extensions, and the general partner controls the timing of any sale. A secondary market for limited partnership interests exists, but it is thin for sports funds specifically, and sellers routinely accept 10% to 30% below net asset value to get out early. The NFL’s six-year minimum hold adds another layer.
Crowdfunding sits close to private equity in illiquidity terms. Reg CF shares generally cannot be resold for 12 months, and no active secondary market exists for most sports crowdfunding offerings even after that. Packers shares are the extreme case: by design, they have no resale value at all.
The rule of thumb is simple. If you might need the money within five years, stick to publicly traded shares and ETFs. Treat private equity and crowdfunding commitments as capital you will not see again until the fund winds down or the venture resolves one way or the other.