A top 25 now collectively worth $903 billion has a new No. 1 as a French luxury goods mogul dethrones Steve Ballmer—and an American rival also leapfrogs the embattled face of the Clippers. Owning a sports team is often reserved for the ultra-wealthy in popular leagues like the NFL and the NBA, where every franchise is now worth more than $3 billion, but Bernard Arnault tops Forbes’ annual list of the world’s richest owners thanks to a club with a comparatively puny price tag. The 77-year-old Frenchman, whose estimated net worth of $171 billion places him No. 7 overall on Forbes’ 2026 World’s Billionaires ranking, controls Paris FC through his family holding company after acquiring a majority stake in the French soccer club in 2024 at a reported valuation of around $100 million—or about 0.06% of his current net worth. Arnault has a $45 billion lead on Los Angeles Clippers owner and former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who held the crown as the world’s richest sports owner for the past two years and is now worth an estimated $126 billion. But Arnault’s coronation is also the result of a reclassification. For the annual owners ranking, Forbes counts only majority stakes in certain major sports leagues, including France’s Ligue 1. However, Paris FC was stuck in the second-tier Ligue 2 at the time of Arnault’s purchase, keeping the LVMH CEO and chairman—once the world’s richest person—off the owners list until the club earned a promotion to the top division with a second-place finish in 2025. Ballmer actually falls to No. 3 among sports owners this year, with his net worth up a modest 7% from 2025’s $118 billion after an uneven 12 months for Microsoft’s stock, which closed at a record high in October but has fallen 25% since as the high costs and competitive pressures of the AI boom weigh on software companies. Leapfrogging him in the ranking is the Denver Broncos’ Rob Walton, a Walmart heir with a $146 billion fortune, up 33% from last year’s $110 billion. The 25 richest sports owners are now collectively worth $903 billion, an astonishing 49% increase from the 2025 list’s $607 billion, and all 25 exceed $10 billion for the first time, with Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank setting the floor at $11.1 billion. It’s indicative of a new generation of owners who in many cases made billions in other industries before entering sports, rather than having most of their fortunes tied up in teams that they acquired at bargain prices decades ago. Even though the NFL is the world’s most valuable sports league, its concentration of longtime family-owned franchises means only eight of the league’s owners made the cut, with the NBA not far behind with seven owners listed. The most popular sport represented is soccer, part of the portfolios of 13 owners in the ranking, across seven leagues. The commercialization of the beautiful game is fitting for a group of global billionaires gearing up for a World Cup year, although four owners from Major League Soccer—David Tepper, Stanley Kroenke, Robert Kraft and Blank—also control more valuable NFL teams. The 2026 list features three new additions alongside Arnault: Indonesian billionaire R. Budi Hartono, who owns Italian soccer club Como 1907 with his brother, Michael; Peter Mallouk, the new owner of MLS’s Sporting Kansas City; and Dan Friedkin, who owns the Premier League’s Everton and Serie A’s A.S. Roma. Read the full story on Forbes: ByHank Tucker,Forbes Staff. https://www.forbes.com/sites/hanktucker/2026/03/12/the-worlds-richest-sports-team-owners-2026/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices