Todd Boehly, Soccer’s Big Spender

After Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich was pressured to sell Chelsea, Todd Boehly swooped in. That he outbid billionaires on both sides of the Atlantic for one of the English Premier League’s top teams surprised no one who knows his track record. Boehly was part of a group that previously paid the highest price for a US sports franchise, in 2012, when it bought the Los Angeles Dodgers for $2 billion. His portfolio also includes pieces of the LA Lakers and betting site DraftKings Inc.

Boehly, who started the credit-investing business at money manager Guggenheim Partners LLC before co-founding Eldridge in 2015, represents a new breed of owner. He sees sports teams more as an asset class than an expensive hobby, seeking to take advantage of rising prices for media rights and loosening regulations around gambling. At an investing conference in New York in September, Boehly talked about acquiring soccer clubs in other countries to serve as feeder teams for Chelsea, and he floated the idea of an all-star game in the top English league. “Ultimately, I hope the Premier League takes a little bit of a lesson from American sports,” he said, adding, “I think everyone likes the idea of more revenue.”