Wealthy families have dominated sports clubs for a long period of time, but now the era has changed as teams are no longer a family affair but a purely commercial one with ownership transferred to investment funds and alliance companies despite the downturn in the global economy. .

In May, Todd Boehle became the latest American billionaire to buy a Premier League club after he struck a £4.25 billion ($5.3 billion) consortium deal to buy Chelsea.

California-based investment group Clearlake will become Chelsea’s majority shareholder in the consortium, with Boli also becoming the new president of the club, which has been put up for sale by Russian owner Roman Abramovich.

All prominent members of the Bohli-Clearlake Capital consortium have joined the new Chelsea board of directors.

On his way to take over Chelsea, Bowley, co-owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball club, outperformed 11 other bids to buy the London club, demonstrating that the English Premier League’s global brand is key as it provides the opportunity to capitalize on huge income from television broadcasting Sale of club products.

“To play (commercially and economically) at the highest level. It’s about the best players. You also have a media market in the midst of growth,” Buli told Bloomberg in 2019 when approaching the Premier League acquisitions.

Some football economics analysts believe that the value of the top clubs in the English Premier League could reach over £10bn within a decade, and for this reason the number of corporate alliances seeking to enter the line of economic benefit is on the rise. but not only in the Premier League.

“You see more money coming into sports from institutional investors than before from families or rich people,” said David Gandler, co-founder and general manager of US-based streaming service Vopotify.

There are other ways to fulfill a sporting dream by buying a club, according to businessman Pascal Rigaud, who recently became a shareholder in French second-division football club Paris. together as a group to buy clubs.”

The benefits, he added, are lower costs for each individual buyer and more potential investors, which “reduces financial risk.”

However, the amounts paid show no signs of underinvestment as the Boehli consortium paid a record price for the gym, but that record did not last long as another US consortium led by Walmart heir Rob Walton and involving others including his daughter and brother-in-law, he bought the Denver Broncos from the NFL for $4.65 billion.

– “They don’t want to miss the train” –

These prices are beyond the capacity of other Americans, prompting them to turn to the European continent to invest their money in its football clubs.

As for the Italian champions AC Milan, the American investment fund Redbird chose the Rossoneri to buy it for $1.3 billion from its other American rival, Elliott Management, in early June.

American businessman John Textor, who was originally a shareholder of the English club Crystal Palace, bought the largest share of the seven-time French champions Lyon through his sports investment company Eagle Football Holdings.

The €600m he paid in June was a record-breaking investment for French clubs.

“There are many factors that all work in the same direction,” says Salvatore Galatito of finance firm Galatito Sports Partners. “No other media content is more valuable than sports.”

“Staking will also increase the audience. As a result, people will watch more matches, and this will increase the value of the content,” he added.

This is reflected in the fantastic amounts paid for TV rights, and not only in football, which remains the most important in terms of direct content.

The huge money given to clubs is also accompanied by increased competition between match carriers with streaming services such as Amazon and Dazon on the line to become a major player.

The cost of moving the American Football League (NFL) for 11 years in the US was $110 billion in March 2021 and the cost of moving Indian Premier League cricket was $6.2 billion between domestic and digital rights for the period of five years when it was introduced .On the tender in mid-June.

For investors, owning a club is also a safe investment because the sport has shown its ability to withstand the economic downturn.

Rob Telles of specialist investment bank Inner Circle Sports backs up this theory with what happened to America’s four major sports, which dropped just 2 percent in value during the 2008-2009 season, when the country was going through “one of the worst economic crises in history.” .

For Rigo, sport also has this “charming” key element to attract investors, adding, “There is also the phenomenon of investors who don’t want to miss the train” in terms of capitalizing on investments in sports.