There are 31 traditional owners in the National Football League, and every single one of them is a billionaire. Owning a professional sports team has become one of the latest trends for America’s wealthiest individuals, with minority shares being dealt around like business cards.
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Of course, some owners are much wealthier than others, especially Rob Walton. The heir to the Walmart fortune and current owner of the Denver Broncos, Walton, is currently the richest owner in the NFL. According to Forbes’ Real-Time Billionaires List, Walton and his family currently boast a net worth of $118.2 billion, which is the 12th largest fortune in the world today.
For context, the owner of the most valuable team in the league, Jerry Jones of the Dallas Cowboys, sports a current net worth of $16.3 billion. It’s enough to be considered as generational wealth, but it’s still a mere fraction of Walton’s portfolio, and just the 152nd largest net worth on the list.
Likewise, the hedge fund manager and owner of the Carolina Panthers, David Tepper, is the second richest man in all of professional football. He’s amassed more than $21.3 billion for himself throughout the years and his Appaloosa Management firm oversees nearly $13 billion in assets.
When Tepper originally bought the NFC South’s lowest franchise back in 2018, he paid a then-record price of $2.8 billion. His Panthers may be starved of success, but Tepper certainly isn’t.
Overall, the 67-year-old ranks 51 slots ahead of Jones on the Forbes list, sitting just outside of the top 100 rankings at the 101 spot. The head of the Panthers is currently the only other owner besides Walton to have a net worth north of $20 billion, yet the Broncos owner still possesses nearly five times the amount of wealth.
After Tepper, the next wealthiest owners are those of the Miami Dolphins and the Los Angeles Rams. With a personal net worth $18.4 billion, real estate mogul Stephen Ross of the Dolphins slots in as the third wealthiest owner in the NFL.
Just behind him, however, is one of the most prominent names in all of ownership, Stan Kroenke. His self-titled sports and entertainment company currently oversees both Arsenal of the Premier League and Arsenal Women of the Women’s Super League, in addition to the Los Angeles Rams, the Denver Nuggets, the Colorado Avalanche, the Colorado Rapids, and the Colorado Mammoths. Kroenke carries with him a net worth of $18 billion.
The NFL recently announced that it was able to generate more than $13.8 billion in national revenue this past year, the most in any one fiscal year of its nearly 105-year history. Suffice to say, the rich just keep on getting richer, and that’s something to keep in mind as ticket prices for regular season NFL events continue to reach all-time highs as well.
