The Qatar Investment Authority has taken a stake in the owner of Washington’s professional basketball and hockey teams, marking the first investment by a sovereign wealth fund in US sport.
The fund is paying $200mn for a 5 per cent stake in Monumental Sports and Entertainment in a deal that values the owner of NBA’s Washington Wizards, the WNBA’s Washington Mystics and the National Hockey League’s Washington Capitals at $4.05bn, according to two people familiar with the matter.
In recent years, Gulf states have ploughed billions of dollars into sport, from golf to tennis and football, partly to develop domestic tourism and entertainment sectors, but also in search of returns as the industry benefits from explosive growth in the value of media and broadcasting rights.
Read the full story on the Financial Times here.