[Forbes] Richest NBA Owners (2026)
Richest NBA Owners (2026)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/hanktucker/2026/03/12/the-worlds-richest-sports-team-owners-2026/
How can they punish the guy that brings the most money to the table am I right guys? - Silver probably
He has distinctly more money than the rest of the top five combined, sheesh.
Steve Balmer is the House Corino from Dune of the NBA. He’s so much more powerful than any direct competitor, but not as powerful as his competition combined. It creates a peculiar sense of balance
silver is a guild navigator just based on looks
Does that make Kawahi Baron Harkonnen or is he more of a princess Irulan.
Who is the bene gesserit? Rich Paul ?
Naz Reid
*net worth, not money.
Net worth is a measure of how much they own, in dollars worth(money)… he could likely liquidate while keeping the same percentage of his money as everyone else. Meaningless distinction
Minus whatever debt they have which can be in the hundreds of millions.
Not really.
Had Musk gone liquid a few weeks ago, he’d still be a trillionaire. But now, he’s not.
Than every other owner combined
What does having the most money do in this context? If the league rules against him and he disagrees, his recourse is to take it to binding arbitration. It’s not the US and the UN where the US provides a quarter of their funding. The NBA can (did) operate without Balmer’s money prior to him buying the clippers.
And they can do nothing its not before the courts.
It’s not a money thing. People keep brining that up. Any owner that has something they want to fight, they will put up a fight. I don’t think Ballmer is paying his lawyers $20B and the other owners can’t afford them.
From the NBA prospective, it’s about who wants to win. Owners that don’t want to win hurt the league. And owners that have financial trouble keep selling.
Last paragraph is wrong, owners don’t want to spend more that’s where the balance is. Some do because either they actually care about that or they think they’ll recoup/make more money if their team wins(warriors with splash bros era for example).
At the end of the day, it’s still about money for 90%+ of the owners(random number thrown).
My point is Ballmer being the richest probably has more power in those owner meetings, all these billionaires have to interact with each other, you don’t want to piss off another owner and then you never know what the ramafication on your actual business might be. Ballmer knows a lot of people, he could absolutely try to use his connection to blackball another owner pushing for some type of punishment outside of their nba business(their actual business).
At the same times, all the other owners don’t want this to become the norm(having to spend under the table).
If I had to guess, this is what they will/have settled on. No/barely any punishment but they want this to stop, they will make it clear he can’t do that again or there will be consequences. They’ll be nice about it saying they get he has more money but it negatively affects them, etc. Ballmer being caught doing what he did will accept this as it’s no consequences for what he did. And we’ll move on. I mean we’ll keep talking about it here, pablo will prob say other things but this is probably it. If there’s consequences it’ll be minimal af and they’ll continue with the angle ballmer didn’t know and couple picks as punishments if any.
So why can’t the NBA tell him to fook off?
Because unlike on Reddit, you can’t convict someone and impose penalties based on what you “believe” happened. You do that after you prove what they did wrong. The NBA apparently is unable to do so so they can’t tell him to fook off.
Everyone rich owners brings pretty much the same amount of money to the table
Kind of, but also revenue sharing does mean the most insanely rich owners are significantly subsidizing the least insanely rich ones.
Probably donated a bunch of Microsoft products…everyone gets windows license and Xbox
Ain’t nothing to play on that Xbox tho
I’m happy with the 80% of Xbox games going back to 2001 but that won’t please everyone.
Then he should be punished even more! Windows 11 is a travesty.
meh it’s fine not groundbreaking or anything but it works fine
Not that little shit from the hornets
Adam gold
Brings the most money under the table
Also America’s general philosophy when it comes to rich guys
Punish him by making him buy every other team in the league so he can’t ever tamper because he’d just screw himself over.
You would think they could actually punish him the most financially lol
Silver - other ownera
That’s how most would think about it I’m sure.
I mean more like “How can we litigate a guy that can outspend us 20 to 1?”
There’s a ceiling on how much that works though. Ballmer could bury you or me in a lawsuit pretty easily, but like what is he going to do here against the league, spend 200 million on lawyers? Is hiring more lawyers going to make his side that much more likely to find a loophole or change the proceedings to his liking? Are they gonna file that many more motions?
Ballmer could spend like 50m on a law firm without thinking about it. The league could spend that too, but it would cut into the league’s usable capital a lot more. Say the league invests 150m into the case beyond whatever they’ve already spent on the investigation. They don’t recoup that money. Even in a favorable ruling there’s no way Ballmer foots the bill for the case and investigation. So it’s the league spending a lot of cash to ultimately hurt their own pockets.
So its not even about winning the case, it’s purely attritional warfare.
The billionaire class is untouchable. Russia has a dictatorship and even their government has to tiptoe around the oligarchs because that much money is too powerful.
Legal fees are a very common part of a court ordered remedy. It’s really not that crazy of a concept.
They’re not spending 150m on this lol and if they don’t settle it would go into binding arbitration which will be a lot quicker with no appeals, and yes often times rulings can involve the losing party paying fees.
Silver is such a spineless worm
Do you know that he works for the owners and is their voice.
Do you really not understand that?
I am so broke
Have you tried being a Saudi prince?
Have you tried getting pooped on by a Saudi prince?
Have you tried being Bill Gates’ roommate in college?
My friend wants to know how much that pays
If you have to ask then you’re just the right amount of broke
To be fair, he was asking for a friend
Can my friend be pooped on, but as his manager I get paid ? He does like it.
Slather me in that Saudi oil
Do I get to spread chocolate on models who’ve had their passports confiscated? If so, i’m in.
Or owning 4% of microsoft?
Microsoft prince doenst have that ring to it
The current system is meant to enrich the few, not support the many.
when was it ever not the case?
OK, so are we dying of being fat or skinny?
Weirdly enough, both.
Some parts of the body are suffering from malnutrition, while also experiencing fatty liver disease, gout and diabetes.
Even if you find it objectionable our lives are all better than kings of old. More companies and non zero sum wealth will continue to be created. More food than we can eat, more information than we can use, more opportunities than we can imagine.
Life isn’t over. We’re just all so baseline rich compared to the past we’re complaining we’re not living in paradise.
you should look at Elon Musk’s net worth, he’s richer than #2-4 combined
People really think that anything is going to happen to Ballmer? Money can make it where you can do anything
Steve Ballmer is the ninth richest person on Earth btw
Hey clippers was 9th best record in west last year
All that money and they still can’t get to the Finals.
We’ll see who’s not making the finals when they give a 40 year old KD $800M under the table to sign there in 2028
[deleted]
2021 they were in WCF.
Oh yeah with the Kawhi injury, guess I repressed that memory LMAO
Fine Balmer $75 billion and have NBA-funded universal child care.
Biggest Clippers win possible.
To be honest, I’m not shocked to hear that. That’s a lot of money to me but to those people, they can always amass more and want more.
Ballmers net worth was around $20b when he bought the clippers if I recall. Says a lot about the way shits going how much that has multiplied since then
Edit- Yeah here’s the article announcing the initial sale agreement in 2014, cites his net worth from Forbes at $20.3b
I don’t think this is accurate.
Microsoft stock is up >1000% in that time + all the dividends he gets from that holding (roughly 1b/year on avg)
It is, I just linked the article.
Most of this huge net worth explosion among the ultra rich has happened since Covid.
2019 they had him at $41b
They can also get fucked. Greedy SOBs
Man imagine all of the things Musk could do wrong and get away with if he bought an NBA team. He might even be able to buy a championship unlike that scrub Ballmer
Yeah, but he’s no Bernard Arnault
“When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.”
They also didn’t likely technically break any rules
Couldn’t agree more. One of the richest people on Earth literally said he could shoot someone and people would vote for him. And they did
The special few did it 3 times
One of the richest people on Earth he says 😂😭 the biggest loser and crook on Earth is more like it
Hardly a billionaire at the time he said that. But didn’t make him any less wrong 😭 at least he’ll never be truly happy
But, the success of all his children, that should thrill any parent!
Oh wait, that’s not about him
Pera and his company broke international fckin sanctions when they sold equipment to the Russian army !! and nothing happened..
So if people think Balmer is gonna face any consequences for some under table money, lol
He’s richer than Steve Cohen, owner of the New York Mets. Imagine if this asshat invested in Grizzlies the way Cohen blew money on the Mets.
But we need the 2nd apron so these “big market teams” like GS don’t get all the good players..:.
International sanctions violations are not under the purview of the NBA’s commissioner. Cap circumvention is.
I know it’s still unlikely that LA faces any real consequences, but you’re drawing a false equivalence.
Sterling talking about Magic Johnson had nothing to do with anything but the nba still acted
Can’t upvote enough!!
We need more luigis
Too many Flock cameras, how do you think they caught him?
I mean, he shot a guy in Manhattan in broad daylight. Its frankly a miracle he got away as long as he did
McDonald’s the real evil guy here
And I’m pretty sure the chick who called it in didn’t even get the reward
Probably because no one called anything in. They used illegal surveillance techniques to find him
Had to do a double take at Balmer’s number
Some reports show $175b…
He’s as wealthy as the next 5 billionaire owners combined.
Only if you stick to the governors. Michael Dell is a part owner of the spurs and has an estimated wealth of over 200 Billion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Dell
Julia Koch and family are part owners of the Nets. They are worth over 80 billion.
Yeah the PE infusion has certainly changed the landscape. Also why team valuations are getting so crazy.
And wealthier than the “poorest” 24 other owners
How are Stan’s children going to eat, if he stays in the second apron?
How will they afford their second yacht?
The Grizzlies have the 4th richest owner in the league???
His tech is being used by the Russian army according to Ptfo
Bro he’s just evading some sanctions, don’t worry about it it’s not a big deal.
“I may have done some light treason”
Every single NBA owner can afford paying the 2nd apron
Every single NBA owner can afford signing FAs without a cap system that prevents “big markets” from scooping them all up
This clown owns the grizzlies because it’s a fucking item line in his investment portfolio.
he was a pretty poor billionaire when he bought the Grizzlies if I remember correctly
War crimes are a lucrative business
Owns 90% of Ubiquiti, which makes wifi modems and cameras. Many companies and homes use Unifi. Since at least 2020, he’s regularly been a top 10 owner in net worth, but 4 is the highest I’ve seen.
Mickey Arison was CEO of Carnival Cruises, when the company plead guilty to dumping oil contaminated waste into the ocean and then tried to cover it up. And even after being placed on probation, they admitted to violating the ruling not long after. Not to mention Carnival being accused of tax avoidance by registering their boats under other countries. And that’s just one of 29 other owners.
Let’s get a thread where fans can put all the fucked up shit their owners did over the years
Me first
Let’s hear it
You’ll need a full book
The problem is that lots of fans think they’re morally superior somehow and won’t care to admit that the owner of their team probably sucks.
They don’t care as long as their team is successful. Just take /r/lakers the last week as an example. The moral grandstanding and virtue signaling was nauseating. Yet not a word was said when Mark Walter bought the team when he literally invested in ICE prisons, was groveling at Trump’s feet, and is a straight up fraud. All because the Dodgers are successful.
Yeah Imma peace out
Now tell me about the owners who have done bad things
Stan sure is a cheap ass for being a top 5 richest owner
Kroenke spends a ton of money on his teams and all of them have won.
He’ll spend money on players sometimes. But front office, coaches, a real practice facility? Nah. At least regarding the Nuggets
He probably will start investing more in the Denver teams.
The Rams are obviously where Kroenke has spent the most money and Arsenal next.
Nuggets won before the second apron was a thing. He, like most NBA owners, have used the second apron as justification for being cheap since it kicked in.
Zero owners are in the second apron, and there are more than zero cheap NBA owners.
Kroenke isn’t afraid to pay money, Arsenal is running the second-highest wage bill in the league.
Kroenke, like all NBA owners, is using the second apron as an excuse so spend less on his NBA team. He’s being cheap with it. How much he’s spending on a different team in a different league is only relevant in the sense that maybe it explains why he’s cheaping out on his NBA team if he cares more about Arsenal and it’s expensive.
Are all 30 NBA owners cheap?
Yes, that’s why they came up with the 2nd apron to create a de facto hard cap.
The word has no meaning if it applies to everyone. Kroenke spends as much as any other does or would.
Rich cunts doing shady shit and not facing consequences is not something that should be accepted as law
These motherfuckers are parasites to society
Miriam Aldeson is a shitty person
newsflash. none of the owners are good people
She’s the worst of the worst
I was a massive fan of “Steve Baller” building his own six billion dollar stadium and not dragging tax payers for it. Even more pleased that the venue has a really nice multi floor parking garage with connecting overhead bridge to walk over traffic after you park. This makes the Intuit Dome one of the best places for events in L.A. Then these under the table payments just blasted away that goodwill with myself and most nba fans. A shame.
The entire process of how that arena and all their parking structures were built was shady. Pablo could do a whole new series about it tbh.
Happy for them
Ballmer just gonna throw his money around Silver watch
Every single one of these people is too wealthy.
Maximum net worth for the betterment of humanity, now.
ABAB - all billionaires are bad. You don’t get to the level of wealth without exploiting someone or something.
Athletes are prob the closest thing to ethical billionaires. Like guys like Wemby are probably going to make close to a billion just from on court money
Athletes, top of the top musicians; shit I just saw James Cameron is a billionaire, just had to direct the highest grossing movie ever on three separate occasions
Who gives a shit
Basically Steve Ballmer is 145x richer than your normal billionaire. This is why other owners do not want to fck with him. His annual dividend ($1.2billion) from Microsoft is equivalent to their whole net worth.
TIL Steve Ballmer is 145x richer than me
I expected Arison to be one of the poorest owners with how much of a cheap ass he is with that team
The Grizz had a loaded owner? Dang.
In large part due to selling equipment used to make militarized drones directly to Russia even though there are current sanctions preventing such transactions.
Have. He owns 90% of Ubiquiti, which sells modems and camera systems under the brand Unifi.
geez adelsons net worth skyrocketed thanks to ties with trump
Adelsons are disgusting ghouls. They paid 300 million dollars to Trump to rip up the Iran deal and start a war instead
I hate Kroenke so fucking much. At least as a Nuggets fan.
They don’t cheap out with the Rams and Avs
NHL and NFL have hard caps. Huge difference
I don’t mean regarding the roster. They’ve actually been spending in the Jokic era.
I’m talking about internal hires at GM and coach in the middle of a title window. Connelly should never have been poached like that in the first place. (He wasn’t a perfect GM, but far better than Booth)
Fine balmer 45 billion for destroying league integrity. Use profits to implement non microsoft robot refs.
Cmon man lol
Ballmer is the richest owner in sports as a whole
It is just crazy to me how much wealth people can amass
Almost like we should tax them more or something.
Pera means Money in my language so number 4 is literally Bob Money
If Ballmer sold today, another billionaire would take his place.
Does he have power and influence ? Sure. But there are very real risks here for the NBA if they let this go unpunished.
If Stan Kroenke doesn’t spend some money—
Dead last:
Tom Dundon, 2.3 Billion
Billionaire bad
Gross
Balmer spends a shit load of money on the team and construction around their arena and it doesn’t even matter he still gets richer just from Microsoft stock. Most of us could work our whole lives and never even sniff having a million bucks to our name because of inflation and housing costs restricting the working and middle classes from accumulating wealth these days. He has 145,000 times that amount.
Hence why Balmer will not be punished and is above all, he has the league in his pocket.
it’s crazy the Warriors own a whole neighborhood basically and are one of the top international brands and a sister franchise worth $1B and Lacob isn’t even top 5. tooooooooo much money in sports ownership.
Lacob was nowhere near a billionaire when he bought the team for $400 million and also had a ton of partners. Fun fact; the previous owner hated Larry Ellison so much that he took Lacob’s lower offer. (I think).
Ellison might be too old to get into the NBA game but he wanted a franchise bad at one point.
that is correct about Ellison
i read that first number right??
Thinking Toronto’s Roger’s is in the top 3 at market valuation of $30 B !! 🤨
145b and still got caught by a reporter who is basically a nobody
Could buy the NBA.
Wait… Why are the nuggets so cheap?
Correction:
All that money and can’t even get out of the west.
I didnt realize those damn Adelsons were so rich. They’re never going to sell smh
Enough to give us all a 1k stimulus check btw
145 billion is insane
Pablo Torre has become a hero for the poors…
You’re one of the poors brother
I’m glad Stan spends for Arsenal
Watch the SJWs ITT cry because they didn’t apply themselves outside of their mom’s basement.
There’s a dude on this list who sells arms to Russia, why should someone aspire to apply themselves in that way
Because they don’t sit on Reddit crying about what other people do. They DO stuff. Big difference there, shrimp.
Billionaires shouldn’t exist or at the very least, shouldn’t have this much influence across the board in every facet of our lives
We found the malcontent socialist.
Yep, someone with more money than me should not exist. Until I jump to another tax bracket. Yeah, right.
What if someone in worse economic situation like you said that you have too much money?
Lmao yeah I’m malcontent for thinking billionaires aren’t ethical and that the amount of influence they exert over society at large is terrible
Shit they’d probably be right
Now this is more like it
Wait, Kroenke has $24 billion? Wtf is he pinching pennies for
Can you keep going down the list, I want to see if I have a chance here
Where do the Bulls owners rank?
Stan “Second Apron” Kroenke
Kroenke and his front office choices are ruining the Nuggets. At this point it doesn’t feel that far off from what the Haslems did to Giannis and the Bucks :(
clip gang or don’t bang baby!!! MSFT is up 20% the last month alone. yessir
When you put it like that why have a salary cap? I would love to see how much the best players would get with no cap.
Because removing the salary cap would make the league lopsided and unwatchable.
Absolutely not, this isn’t soccer, the parity era is way more enjoyable