Cricket, soccer club owners

Last week, Forbes released its annual list of the world’s billionaires, citing over 1,100 people who get to enjoy some of life’s great toys, from yachts and private jets to plush vacation homes.
The toy of choice for some: sports. If you’re a fan, being a billionaire means you can do even better than prime seats, valet parking and wait service. You can buy the team. In fact, if you’re Paul Allen, the original No. 2 guy at Microsoft worth $14.2 billion, you don’t even have to choose between the Pacific Northwest’s NBA and NFL franchises. You can have both.

Allen, ranked No. 48 on this year’s Forbes billionaires list (46 spots behind his old partner, Bill Gates), owns both the Portland Trail Blazers and Seattle Seahawks. That’s $1.4 billion in sports properties on his portfolio.
But while Allen’s net worth is enough to make him America’s wealthiest sports owner, it’s only good enough for No. 3 globally. Leading the pack of a list that extends across the world – from Asia to Europe to the U.S. – is India’s MukeshAmbani, whose $22.3 billion net worth makes him the second-richest man in Asia and 19th-richest in the world. The chairman of oil & gas conglomerate Reliance Industries is, unsurprisingly, a major fan if cricket, India’s most popular sport. In 2008 he bought the Indian Premier League’s Mumbai Indians. Ambani and Reliance have taken advantage of player auctions to upgrade the team, which won the Champions League Twenty20 tournament in 2011.

Mumbai Indians' co-owner Mukesh Ambani, center, mingles with players as his team wins during an Indian Premier League cricket match against Delhi Daredevils in New Delhi, India, Sunday, April 10, 2011.
(AP)

Right behind Ambani: Ukrainian mining and steel tycoon Rinat Akhmetov (the world’s 39th-richest person with a net worth of $16 billion), owner of FC Shakhtar Donesk, a soccer club in the Ukrainian Premier League that became the only team from Ukraine to capture a UEFA Cup championship in 2009.
In generating our list of the world’s richest sports owners, we stayed clear of those owning small minority stakes or who are otherwise uninvolved in running team operations. That list would include John Malone of Liberty Media, which owns the Atlanta Braves, and David Thomson of Thomson Reuters, which owns the NHL’s Winnipeg Jets through True North Sports & Entertainment.


See Satellite TV Sports........