The New York Giants have agreed to sell a minority stake to Julia Koch and her family in a deal that values the storied NFL franchise at more than $10bn, the highest valuation ever for a sports team.
According to multiple reports, the Kochs will pay more than $1bn for a 10% interest in the team. The transaction is expected to be presented to the league’s other owners for approval when they meet in October.
The deal will reshape but not upend the Giants’ century-old ownership structure. The Mara family, who founded the club in 1925, and the Tisch family, who bought in during 1991, will each see their holdings reduced from 50% to 45%. John Mara remains the team’s president and chief executive.
The Giants had announced in February that they had retained the investment bank Moelis & Co to explore the sale of a non-controlling slice of the franchise. That process has now produced the most lucrative minority stake sale in league history. It comes only months after a majority stake in the Los Angeles Lakers was sold at a $10bn valuation, until now the record for any sports organization.
For the Kochs, the deal represents a further move into New York’s professional sports landscape. Last year Julia Koch and her three children purchased a 15% stake in BSE Global – the parent company of the Brooklyn Nets, WNBA’s New York Liberty and Barclays Center – in a deal that valued the group at $6bn.
Koch, the widow of industrialist and political donor David Koch, is the richest woman in New York City, with a fortune estimated at between $74bn and $81bn depending on the source. Forbes and Bloomberg both place her among the 20 wealthiest people in the world.
The Giants, four-time Super Bowl winners and one of the NFL’s most storied franchises, are now valued by Sportico at $10.25bn, ranking them as the third-most valuable team in the league. By comparison, the San Francisco 49ers earlier this year sold a 6.2% stake at an $8.6bn valuation.
Representatives for both the Koch family and the Giants declined to comment on the agreement, which will only become final if ratified by the NFL’s ownership committee. If approved, it will cement a new landmark in the ongoing surge of franchise valuations across American sport.
