Mark Cuban's group buys stake in relocating MLB franchise
Mark Cuban's Harbinger Sports Partners acquired a minority stake in the Athletics, the MLB franchise relocating to Las Vegas with a 2028 stadium opening.
Intelligence analysis by Llama
Harbinger Sports Partners, the Atlanta-based firm backed by Mark Cuban, closed its first deal with a minority stake in the Athletics, betting on the franchise's 2028 move to a $2 billion Las Vegas stadium. The investment lands as MLB valuations surge and private equity accelerates its push into baseball.
Billionaire Mark Cuban and his friends just bought a small piece of a baseball team that's moving from California to Las Vegas. The team is building a fancy new $2 billion stadium on the Strip. Cuban's group thinks Las Vegas sports teams are a really good place to park money.
Analysis
Harbinger's First Deal Caps a Year of Buildup
The Athletics investment closes a 14-month arc for Harbinger Sports Partners, which Cuban helped launch in May 2025 alongside Rashaun Williams, Steve Cannon, and former MLB CFO Jonathan Mariner. The group has raised more than $460 million against a $750 million target and plans 10 to 12 franchise investments in total, the article reports.
Cuban's role is the headline. He spent more than two decades as one of the NBA's most prominent owners before selling his majority stake in the Dallas Mavericks. His shift to a minority, multi-franchise vehicle backed by institutional capital marks a different posture: a portfolio approach rather than a controlling-principal bet on a single team. The firm says the goal is straightforward, to "make our investors a lot of money," and the structure, with league-governance veterans like Mariner on the cap table, is built for repeat deals rather than a single trophy asset.
The Athletics is the firm's first completed investment, and the team fits Harbinger's template. The roster of operators brings governance experience from AMB Sports and Entertainment, which oversees the Atlanta Falcons, Atlanta United, and Mercedes-Benz Stadium, alongside direct league-finance expertise from Mariner's tenure as MLB's CFO.
Why the Athletics, Why Las Vegas
The Athletics' move to Las Vegas, anchored by a $2 billion domed stadium on the former Tropicana site along the Strip and set to open in 2028, is the centerpiece of the bull case. Williams dismissed the idea that Harbinger's capital is a lifeline. "All of the money required to build the stadium was already committed two years ago," he said. "Fisher definitely doesn't need our money."
What Harbinger is buying, then, is exposure to a market that did not have major-league baseball an hour ago and will soon sit at the center of a year-round sports ecosystem. Nevada and Clark County have committed up to $380 million in public financing, and the team reports that first-available luxury suites have sold out, with 80% of behind-home-plate season-ticket packages already purchased. Lower-bowl and suite levels are taking shape and upper-deck construction is underway, according to ESPN.
Williams called Las Vegas "one of the greatest sports investment opportunities of our generation." The deal is structured as a long-term play on that market thesis rather than a near-term valuation flip, and Harbinger's broader pipeline suggests the Athletics is the opening move, not the finale.
MLB's Valuation Gap and the Private-Equity Rotation
Cuban and his partners are entering at a moment of accelerating franchise values. The average MLB team is now worth $3.17 billion, a 12% year-over-year jump that Sportico describes as the largest since the outlet began its annual valuation series in 2021. The 30 clubs are collectively worth $95 billion, led by the Yankees at $9.4 billion.
The relative-bargain framing is the key. MLB franchises trade at 7.2 times revenue, against 13.5 times for the NBA and 10.3 times for the NFL, per Sportico. The Ross-Arctos Sports Franchise Index reports that North American franchise values have compounded at 13% annually over six decades, outperforming equities by 2.5 points, with the most recent one-year return at 16.9%. Goldman Sachs's Dave Dase, speaking at a late-2025 conference, pointed to "league governance, defined ownership rules, and shared revenue models" as the structural reasons institutional capital keeps coming in.
That rotation is already visible elsewhere: Sixth Street took a 10% stake in the San Francisco Giants, and Arctos Partners now holds positions in six MLB teams. Cuban's involvement adds celebrity visibility to a trend that was well underway, but it does not start it.
Key points
- Harbinger Sports Partners, founded May 2025, acquired a minority stake in the Athletics on July 23 in the firm's first completed deal
- Mark Cuban is general partner; the firm has raised more than $460 million toward a $750 million target for 10 to 12 franchise investments
- The Athletics play at a Triple-A ballpark in West Sacramento while a $2 billion domed stadium rises on the Las Vegas Strip for a 2028 opening
- Average MLB franchise value hit $3.17 billion, a 12% year-over-year rise, the largest jump since Sportico began tracking in 2021
- MLB franchises trade at 7.2 times revenue versus 13.5 times for the NBA and 10.3 times for the NFL, per Sportico
If Harbinger's playbook works, the Athletics become a flagship return story that helps the firm clear its $750 million target and validates multi-franchise sports investing as a durable asset class. The Las Vegas anchor could pull in additional capital partners and create a template for institutional entry into mid-market MLB teams still trading at a discount to NBA and NFL peers.
The thesis depends on Las Vegas's sports market continuing to expand without saturation, and on the $2 billion stadium opening on schedule in 2028 without major cost overruns. Construction delays, softening Strip economics, or a broader pullback by private equity from sports could compress returns and leave minority holders with illiquid positions in a single-league portfolio.