Las Vegas Raiders Valued At $6.5 Billion In Offer For Minority Stake

Moving to Las Vegas was quite a boon for the NFL’s Raiders. The team’s value has skyrocketed after just two seasons in Sin City, at least based on the valuation in a pending sale of a minority stake.

Majority owner Mark Davis has an offer on the table for a limited-partner stake that places an enterprise value (the valuation for the entire team, including debt) of $6.5 billion, according to a sports financier familiar with the details. The Raiders, who’ve paid off the $325 million relocation fee to move from Oakland, have $1.3 billion of debt mostly related to the financing of $1.9 billion Allegiant Stadium.

The financier didn’t identify the buyer of the limited partnership or what percentage of the team is being sold. There are some caveats. Small stakes—about 5% or less—are often not a good indication of how much a controlling interest in the team is worth. Typically, minority stakes are sold at a 20% or so discount because LPs have no say in how the team is run.

Sometimes, however, small LP stakes are purchased at premiums because it’s the only opportunity an investor has to buy a piece of a team and get the perks that often come along with it, like a luxury suite, using the prestige to entertain business clients, or tag-along rights, which are the ability to sell their stakes at a control valuation should the majority owner sell.

A year ago, Forbes valued the Raiders at $3.415 billion, good enough to make the team the sixteenth most valuable in the NFL. No doubt the Raiders’ upgraded $6.5 valuation is in part due to the pending sale of the Denver Broncos for $4.65 billion. If the Broncos deal is approved by NFL owners as expected, it would be for $2.3 billion more than the previous NFL sale, when the Carolina Panthers changed hands in 2018. The Raiders were second only to the Dallas Cowboys in ticket revenue in 2021 with $119 million, Forbes data shows. The figure for the Broncos was $99 million.

Another key point: The Raiders, says a source, started making distributions to its owners last year after years of not doing so.

Davis owns 51% of the Raiders and First Football, a group led by Paul Leff, David Abrams and Dan Goldring, who bought treasury stock in the team at a $750 million valuation in 2007 and subsequently added another 3%, owns 23%.

The Raiders declined to comment.