An engineer who owns a cricket team is listed as the owner of the world’s most millionaire sport. Forbes released its 2021 Sports Owners Ranking, led by Mukesh Ambani, owner of the Mumbai Indians, with a net worth of $ 84.5 billion.
This leaves the American Steve Ballmer, owner of the NBA Clippers, in second place, who totals 68.7 billion and was the leader of the 2020 ranking.
In third place is another NBA owner: Daniel Gilbert of the Cleveland Cavaliers, an American dedicated to home loans with a net worth of $ 51.9 billion.
Football appears in fourth place with Francois Pinault, a Frenchman dedicated to the sale of luxury goods and who has a fortune of 42.3 billion, in addition to the Stade Rennais team, which has never been league champions in France and who qualified for the first time to the Champions League in 2020.
The Top 5 is completed with the Austrian Dietrich Mateschitz, creator of the energy drink Red Bull together with Chaleo Yoovidhya (Mateschitz owns 49%). This brand has a Formula 1 team since 2014 and soccer teams in Europe and America, with Leipzig being the most prominent when reaching the semifinals of the 2019-20 Champions League.
Only one major league owner appears in the Top 10: Steve Cohen (ranked 7), who bought the New York Mets in November for $ 2.4 billion, a record for the MLB. Cohen’s estimated net worth is seven times what he paid for the Mets, according to the Forbes ranking: $ 16 billion.
The youngest on the list is American Robert Pera, owner of the NBA’s Memphis Grizzlies. The communications entrepreneur, founder of Ubiquiti Networks, is 43 years old and has a fortune valued at $ 18.3 billion. In fact, Forbes also ranks him as the seventh richest businessman in America under the age of 40.
Roman Abramovic, a businessman with an emphasis on the oil and metallurgical industry, appears in eighth place in the ranking with a fortune of 14.5 billion. The Russian has owned the English soccer team Chelsea since 2003, and thanks to his financial investment, they have won five of their six leagues since then, as well as two Europa League and one Champions League.
The top 10 in the ranking are completed with Joseph Tsai, of Taiwanese origin, but also has Canadian nationality. He owns the Brooklyn Nets, the NBA team where James Harden, Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving currently play, and his fortune reaches $ 11.6 billion at age 57.
Forbes’ complete list includes 20 owners, including: Philip Anschutz, owner of the Galaxy, where Mexicans Javier ‘Chicharito’ Hernández and Jonathan Dos Santos are active; Hasso Plattner, owner of the San Jose Sharks ice hockey (NHL); Dmitry Rybolovlev, owner of AS Monaco (soccer); Micky Arison, of the Miami Heat (NBA) and six other NFL owners.
Jerry Jones (owner of the Dallas Cowboys), Stanley Kroenke (Los Angeles Rams), Shahid Khan (Jacksonville Jaguars), Stephen Ross (Miami Dolphins), Robert Kraft (New England Patriots) and Arthur Blank (Atlanta Falcons) are the representatives of American football in the 2021 ranking.
According to Forbes, these 20 entrepreneurs have a net worth of 426,000 million dollars, which is 60% of what the 20 owners of the previous ranking had (266,000 million in 2020).
