Teammates mob Washington Capitals left wing Alex Ovechkin (8) after he breaks the NHL scoring document with 895 objectives throughout the second interval of an NHL hockey recreation in opposition to the New York Islanders at UBS Arena in Queens, NY on April 6, 2025.
John McDonnell | The Washington Post | Getty Images
Since buying the NHL’s Washington Capitals in 1999, Ted Leonsis has constructed out a sports empire in Washington, D.C.
Through Monumental Sports & Entertainment, based by the previous AOL senior government, that empire now consists of the Capitals, the NBA’s Washington Wizards and the WNBA’s Washington Mystics, in addition to the Capital One Arena and Monumental Sports Network, which airs all of the teams’ video games within the area. All instructed, MSE is valued at greater than $7.84 billion, according to CNBC’s Most Valuable Sports Empires 2025, rating nineteenth.
However, not like many different sports conglomerates, Leonsis and MSE have stayed targeted on Washington, D.C.
Part of that logic, Leonsis defined to CNBC’s Mike Ozanian at CNBC Sport and Boardroom’s Game Plan convention earlier this week, is the leverage and effectivity that comes with a company operated like “a tech company or a branded platform company,” with every workforce being managed independently however sharing assets like sponsorship, ticket gross sales and a media community.
“Coca-Cola has 100 brands, but one truck that delivers all the brands,” he stated.
Building out that platform and benefiting as extra teams are plugged into it has meant Leonsis and MSE have stayed acquisitive.
“I’m unabashed; I want to buy the MLS team. I want to buy the baseball team,” Leonsis stated. “Not for ego, [but] for the fans, because those teams will struggle to compete against the Yankees and the Dodgers but if we can take those teams and plug them into the platform, and they can operate with excellence as a team and we handle all the top line, I think it will make them more competitive and that’s what fans are looking for.”
But, to date, the efforts to purchase a workforce in these leagues have not been profitable.
Leonsis had reportedly been in discussions with Caryle Group co-founder David Rubenstein on a potential joint bid to purchase the Baltimore Orioles for a number of years, in accordance to the Washington Post. However, that settlement by no means got here collectively and Rubenstein and an investor group acquired the Orioles in 2024 for roughly $1.725 billion.
The Lerner household, house owners of the Washington Nationals, introduced that they meant to discover a sale of the workforce in 2022. According to the Washington Post, Leonsis provided no less than $2 billion to buy the workforce, however the Lerner household introduced in 2024 that it was not contemplating a sale.
“We talk all the time,” Leonsis stated of the Lerners. “It takes two to tango, and they’re not ready to sell; they want to wait to see what happens with baseball.”
While MLS’s D.C. United has introduced on a number of minority traders in recent times, valuing it at upwards of $800 million, there isn’t a indication that the workforce is for sale. The workforce was beforehand acquired by an investor group from AEG for roughly $26 million in 2005.
Leonsis acknowledged the challenges of buying teams in an era of skyrocketing valuations, no matter sport. He additionally stated he is taking a look at different alternatives inside sports, similar to lacrosse and ladies’s hockey, in addition to methods to work with non-MSE-owned teams within the space, such because the NWSL’s Washington Spirit.
“I wouldn’t be able to afford to buy a team today,” he stated. “You’re talking about billions of dollars in debt; that debt used to be earmarked for operations, now it’s being earmarked for entry to buy the team.”
A future acquisition might be aided by outdoors traders. In 2023, Leonsis bought a 5% stake in Monumental to the Qatar Investment Authority, a deal that valued the group at round $4 billion at the moment. It additionally broke new floor for the funding of sovereign wealth funds into U.S. sports, which adopted strikes by skilled sports leagues to enable non-public fairness corporations and funds to buy workforce stakes.
Leonsis has beforehand stated that QIA is handled as traders, not companions, and it’s a passive funding.
His perception within the platform mannequin being constructed at MSE is just rising as the corporate invests extra into it, and he stated it’s working extra like a SaaS enterprise than maybe outsiders notice. Leonsis stated the corporate has upwards of $750 million in income yearly, a quantity he expects to attain $1 billion within the subsequent three years.
“We sell subscriptions, season tickets, and suites; we’re a growth company, but 70% of that business is contracted long term,” he stated. “We look like Oracle, Salesforce.”
Could the need to develop that mannequin finally imply shopping for teams outdoors of the D.C. metro space?
Leonsis recalled a visit he took to London in 2019 when the Wizards performed the New York Knicks within the metropolis. While in London, he met with a number of funding bankers who took him to see quite a lot of soccer teams, together with Chelsea. At an NBA board of governors assembly not lengthy after, Leonsis stated just some of the NBA house owners weren’t bidding on Chelsea in some capability.
“When I came home, I thought that we can’t do this,” he stated. “This is so inauthentic. I didn’t play soccer, I’m not going to live in this neighborhood, I’m not going to be able to add value and our platform can’t help.”
But that does not imply each transfer Leonsis has made within the Washington, D.C.-area has been effectively obtained. MSE met loads of criticism in 2023 after a previously announced plan to relocate the Capitals and Wizards to a $2 billion complicated in Virginia fell by. MSE and the town of Washington, D.C., later struck a deal to renovate the existing facility.
“I’m just going to stay in my 10 million household area,” he stated.
