List of current NFL franchise owners
Wikimedia list article
The National Football League (NFL) requires a franchise's controlling owner to hold a minimum 30% stake. It forbids groups of over 24 people as well as corporations, religious groups, governments, and non-profit organizations from owning stakes in teams. One team, the Green Bay Packers, is exempt from this under a grandfather clause and is owned by public shareholders. The Houston Texans are also grandfathered in for their home county the Harris County, Texas, government which owns 5% of the team, as the rule forbidding governments from owning a team became effective in 2007. The NFL's constitution also forbids its owners from owning any other professional football teams, although an exception was made for teams from the now-defunct Arena Football League located in the NFL team's home market. In addition, the controlling owners of NFL teams were previously only permitted to own major league baseball, basketball and hockey teams if they were in the NFL team's home market, or were not located in other NFL cities. Institutional investors were historically forbidden from purchasing stakes in NFL teams until an August 2024 rule change; that December, it approved the sale of portions of the Dolphins and Buffalo Bills to private equity firms.
Soccer has been exempt from these restrictions since 1982, when the league lost a lawsuit filed by the original NASL stemming from the investments of Kansas City Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt and Elizabeth Robbie, the wife of Miami Dolphins founder Joe Robbie in NASL teams; as a result, NFL owners have owned teams in MLS in other NFL markets. In October 2018, the NFL owners voted to relax the cross-ownership rule, allowing controlling NFL owners to own other professional teams within NFL markets outside their home market. The league also informally requires prospective owners to have high liquidity in their assets and positive cash flow; having a majority of one's wealth invested in real estate is often grounds for rejection.
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