Watching sports has become increasingly difficult. Whether you watch at home or in person, the cost of staying engaged has gone up. This includes an influx of premium seats, average ticket prices increasing and a fragmentation of sports streaming across multiple services. Games are now spread across streaming services such as Apple TV, Peacock and Prime Video.

It was not always like this. The 2020s have seen the increasing involvement of private equity firms in professional sports. While private equity is not the main reason for rising costs, it acts as a catalyst when it shouldn’t even be participating.

Before 2019, none of the four major American sports leagues — which include the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL — allowed private equity ownership of any of their franchises. MLB was the first to do so in 2019, allowing institutional funds to buy 30 percent minority stakes in teams. The NBA followed in 2020 with a maximum of 30 percent stakes, and the NFL caved in before the 2024 season, allowing a maximum of 10 percent ownership.

Private equity firms raise money from pension funds, endowments and wealthy investors. Generally, wealthy individuals or families own professional sports franchises and aim to grow the team over a long period of time. Private equity firms do not own a majority of their teams, but they hold minority stakes that provide crucial funding. However, they have a fundamentally different purpose than team majority owners. After investing in teams, they aim for a notable gain over their purchase price when they sell their stake after three to seven years. Because these firms bring cash flow into sports franchises — that is then used for infrastructure and team development — they require guaranteed returns.

When the main focus is placed on increasing a team’s financial value, the result is a more expensive and lower-quality experience for the fans.

Arctos Partners, one of the most involved private equity firms in professional sports, has been a big factor in the rise of ticket and merchandise prices. The firm has stakes in 32 teams, including some of the most successful teams in the modern era, such as the Buffalo Bills, Los Angeles Dodgers and Golden State Warriors.

A prime example of private equity pricing out fans is the introduction of Highmark Stadium, where the Bills have started playing their home games this season. Arctos bought a maximum 10 percent stake in December 2024, two years after New York Gov. Kathy Hochul agreed to commit $600 million in state funds towards building a new stadium. Additionally, Erie County and New York state paid $850 million in public funds. The funding made the team very profitable for Arctos, and as a result, Bills fans took the hit. The new stadium has roughly 11,500 fewer seats than the previous stadium to make room for more luxury seats, which were added to increase revenue per square foot.

This is a part of a trend that is seen in changes to sports venues where seats are slashed to make room for luxury seating — the plans for the new Nissan Stadium, which is set to open in Tennessee in 2027, will cut down on roughly 9,000 seats, and the modernization of Capital One Arena has led to an increase in luxury inventory from 15 to 20 percent to 38 to 40 percent.

However, private equity doesn’t just impact in-person attendance. It also makes the at-home viewing experience more expensive. In 2019, Diamond Sports Group, a subsidiary of Sinclair Broadcast Group, acquired 21 regional sports networks for $10.6 billion, and later that year, Sinclair acquired a 20 percent equity interest in YES Network for about $346 million. Private equity firms were involved with Sinclair, and in 2023, Diamond Sports Group went bankrupt, causing these teams to lose their local broadcasts.

In general, sports viewing has become fragmented across streaming services, making games inaccessible to fans. For the NFL, Thursday Night Football is shown on Amazon Prime, Christmas Day games are on Netflix and select games are shown on Peacock. For the MLB, Apple TV, Peacock, Netflix and Prime Video exclusively stream select regular season games. Although private equity has not directly influenced this, its profit-first involvement has encouraged leagues to expand across multiple streaming services.

One key problem is that team private equity sales will likely drive prices up and test the elasticity of big-market professional sports teams. Around a month ago, Bob Iger and Josh Kushner bought the Los Angeles Lakers for $12.5 billion, $2.5 billion more than its 2025 valuation, and the largest sale of a professional sports franchise ever. The purchase was backed by Kushner’s investment platform, and the buyers have already pitched a plan to increase the valuation to $30 billion within a decade. To return a profit, this will likely lead to a more aggressive monetization of games. In fact, the average face-value ticket price of games is projected to increase from $217 to $361 this season. This effort to prove the Lakers as an unstoppable brand will likely price out longtime and die-hard fans. This sets a dangerous precedent within the sports world.

The NFL, NBA and MLB have all recently implemented many profitable tactics that have made their sports less accessible to fans. As time goes on, private equity will likely only continue to get more involved, leading to skyrocketing prices in order to increase team valuations — and the Lakers are not the only recent example of this. It is unclear exactly how private equity involvement will continue to affect the fan experience, but precedent suggests games will likely become more inaccessible.

Although private equity has not directly caused overall ticket and streaming costs to rise, its presence only influences this behavior and is deeply unnecessary.

Henry Brandler is a sophomore double-majoring in cinema and economics.

Views expressed in the opinions pages represent the opinions of the columnists. The only piece that represents the view of the Pipe Dream Editorial Board is the Staff Editorial.