138 | theceomagazine.comTHERE’S BIG MONEY TO BE MADE IN THE
SPORTS WORLD, BUT YOU DON’T HAVE
TO BE LIONEL MESSI OR LEBRON JAMES
TO GET YOUR HEAD IN THE GAME.WORDS • STEPHEN CORBYBILLIONAIRES
PLAYING
GAMES
B
Billionaires, it turns out, have very similar daydreams to the rest of us – the slight difference
being that they tend to make theirs come true.
Ask any serious sports fan and they’ll tell you they’ve toyed with the thought that they’d do
a much better job of running their favourite team/franchise/shirt-selling megabusiness than the
muppets currently in charge.
If you’re a sports fan and a Russian oligarch valued at US$10.8 billion, you can just snap
up a giant Premier League team like Chelsea, partly because the executive seats at its home
ground looked sweet, and partly to play fantasy football with real money.
But Roman Abramovich, who paid US$179 million for the club back in 2003, didn’t become
the world’s 140th richest man by spending his millions frivolously and was predicting enormous
growth in the football industry.
He was right, of course, as soccer has become an evermore profitable game in the 15 years
since, capable of raising enormous TV revenues yet also paying out astronomical salaries.
Abramovich’s desire to be the best, and win things, has led him to spend lavishly on the
best players and coaches, splashing out a whopping US$2.5 billion during a period in which
the club has made losses of more than US$800 million.
Chelsea has, however, won some big trophies to the delight of its fans, including the
Premier League in 2005 – something the London-based franchise had not managed for
50 years – and the Champions League in 2012.
And Abramovich must still be enjoying himself, because he turned down a US$2.5 billion
offer for Chelsea from the UK’s richest man, Jim Ratcliffe, earlier this year. »