Why this billionaire media mogul is hunting for his next big sports investment
When you dominate the sports market in Washington, D.C., like Monumental Sports founder Ted Leonsis, it's understandable if you're bullish on the future.
"I think there is still a lot of upside in sports and building the value. There's a scarcity that is very unique," Leonsis told Yahoo Finance Executive Editor Brian Sozzi on the Opening Bid Unfiltered podcast (watch above; listen in below).
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"There's one NBA team, one NHL team in Washington, D.C., so if you wanted to buy in or to buy control and you wanted to be in Washington, you've gotta come through us," he said.
Leonsis is a former top executive with AOL. He made his first bet on a sports team in 1999 when he purchased the NHL's Washington Capitals for a reported $85 million.
"I thought they were undervalued," he said. "Now they're valued at two and a half billion dollars."
Other purchases that followed include the WNBA's Washington Mystics in 2005 for $10 million, which he called the "growth stock," and the NBA's Washington Wizards in 2010 for $310 million.
"Now it's probably valued [at] $5 billion," Leonsis said of the Wizards.
Currently, his market spans from Richmond, Va., to Delaware and reaches almost 10 million households, representing the fourth- or fifth-biggest market in the country, according to Leonsis.
Monumental Sports, the parent company for the teams, is reportedly valued at $7.8 billion.
Record-setting sports team sales have recently generated buzz, with plenty of cash coming their way. David Rubenstein, co-founder of the Carlyle Group (CG), purchased the MLB's Baltimore Orioles in 2024 as part of a consortium for $1.725 billion.
Other deals include the Washington Commanders, which sold to Apollo (APO) co-founder Josh Harris for $6 billion in 2023. (Disclosure: Yahoo Finance is owned by Apollo Global Management.) That was followed by the Boston Celtics selling to an investment group led by Synchrony Technology's Bill Chisholm for $6.1 billion. A few months later, the Los Angeles Lakers set a record and sold to Guggenheim CEO Mark Walter for $10 billion. Walter also owns the Los Angeles Dodgers.
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Leonsis has minority partners and a sovereign wealth fund and currently owns about a third of the business. He said he intends to "keep it in the family."
His minority partners and sovereign wealth fund "all have their own fiduciary responsibilities, so I have to start thinking of them like their shareholders in a big company," he said. "I'm a venture capitalist [with AOL co-founder Steve Case], and we make investments in companies, $50 million, $60 million investments."
Going forward, Leonsis said they "very much would like to buy a baseball team in our hometown." However, the Washington Nationals are in "good hands" with its owners, the Lerner family, he noted.
Leonsis admitted he didn't get into sports team buying "because I thought this would be a great business. I did it 'cause I thought it was a way to give back to the city," he said. "Nothing brings a community, a city closer together than a winning sports team."Grace Williams is a writer for Yahoo Finance.
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