Washington’s managing partner Josh Harris (L), joined by Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (c) and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell (R) to sign the commander helmet at a press conference on the construction of a new Commander Stadium in Washington, DC on April 28, 2025.
Get McNamee | Getty Images
For the past decade, private equity investor Josh Harris has been building one of the biggest conglomerates in the sport.
Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment Black Stone Executive David Blitzer in 2017 owns a majority stake across many of the world’s most valuable sports leagues. This includes stocks in NFL Commander Washington, NBA Philadelphia 76ers, NHL’s New Jersey Devils and Premier League Crystal Palace. Earlier this year, the group paid a $250 million franchise fee to the Philadelphia WNBA expansion team, which is scheduled to begin playing in 2030.
This quickly made HBSE one of the most valuable sports-owned groups in the world. In fact, he ranked third in CNBC’s most valuable sports empiresist of 2025 with a value of $14.58 billion.
However, these rising ratings raise the question of Harris’ time as a private equity executive. Will HBSE, or other sports teams and large ownership conglomerates, start to look to the public?
“I don’t think so,” Harris told CNBC’s Scott Wapner at the CNBC Sports and Boardroom Game Plans Conference in Santa Monica, California on Tuesday.
“To date, when they think of IPOs and sports assets as public, they have been valued more as private assets,” Harris said. “I have never seen public ratings surpass private ratings, so people tend to keep them private.”
Madison Square Garden Sports assets, including the New York Knicks and Rangers, are one of the only US sports teams owned by public companies.
Harris said, “They are generally below their intrinsic value and are not as accepted as we would like.”
One major consideration is moving most clubs away from the open market, Harris said.
“People tended to keep them private. Ultimately, as someone who runs a team, you want to be able to spend on winning,” he said. “You want to take a very long-term perspective, and the open market hasn’t always embraced it.”
Harris won a major victory over the Commander this year, signing a $3.7 billion contract to move his team from the current stadium to Washington, D.C., in Landover, Maryland, on the premises of Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium.
“We’re not going to see the benefits from that in years to come,” he said.
Most teams in the NFL in particular are intergenerational assets, and the league has opened up new ways of raising funds. Last year, the league voted to approve selected private equity companies to acquire minority stakes in the NFL franchise.
Harris said the approach has been positive so far.
“Most of the funds are long-term funds, and like control, there’s nothing typical private equity normally has,” he said. “It allows owners like me to think in the very long term… They know they are betting on the city in the long term, fan support and league growth.”
