5 Richest MLB Owners
By The Big Lead
With the 2024 MLB season just around the corner, now feels like a good time to recap which teams are blessed with owners that have deep pockets and are ready to spend them. Some teams, like the Los Angeles Dodgers, are willing to shell out literally whatever it takes to sign star players and win championships. Other teams ... take a different approach, we'll say. This past offseason really highlighted the imbalance between the wealthiest owners and everybody else. To go back to the Dodgers, they shelled out more than $1 billion in total contract value to sign Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Not every team can keep up with those offers even if they were interested in signing such players.
While net worth is not an end-all be-all to how much an owner is willing to spend it is a useful starting point to gauge just how much an MLB owner is capable of shelling out. This matters more in baseball than in other sports because there is no salary cap. There are some obscenely wealthy individuals who own NFL and NBA teams but can't utilize every ounce of their financial might, even if they wanted to because there's a hard cap on how much they can spend. In baseball, there isn't.
Without further ado, here are the five richest owners in baseball. Net worth is sourced from Forbes unless noted otherwise.
5. John Henry, Boston Red Sox (Net Worth: $5.1 Billion)
John Henry has his hands in many pies other than the Red Sox, which is presumably why his net worth is higher than many of his MLB counterparts. In addition to being principal owner in Boston, Henry is also the principal owner of the Pittsburgh Penguins, Liverpool Football Club, and co-owner of RFK Racing.
With the Red Sox operating under a limited budget for 2024 it seems Henry is gearing up to increase this number even more, one way or the other.
4. Charles Johnson, San Francisco Giants (Net Worth: $5.2 Billion)
The 90-year-old Johnson is not involved in the day-to-day operations of the Giants and hasn't been since he purchased the team in 1992. But his money has helped the franchise to win three World Series titles in the last 15 years. He amassed his fortune by becoming CEO of his father's mutual fund, Franklin Resources, at 24 years old.
Johnson made several high-profile acquisitions in his 56-year run at the helm before he stepped down in 2013 and has since enjoyed quite a bit of success from his big-league club.
3. Mark Walter, Los Angeles Dodgers (Net Worth: $6 Billion)
The bane of the other MLB owners' existences (probably), Walter has been tossing cash around like it's nothing over the last few years for the Dodgers. He is the CEO of Guggenheim Partners, an investment firm with more than $300 billion in assets under management. Walter was part of the group that bought the Dodgers back in 2012 for $2.2 billion and he has ensured the team stayed well financed in the years since. Los Angeles has been among the top-five teams in payroll every year under Walter's stewardship.
This past summer the Dodgers shelled out hundreds of millions for superstars, which means Walter is officially setting the standard for check-cutting across sports.
2. Lerner Family, Washington Nationals (Net Worth: $6.6 Billion)
For a while there it looked like the Lerners would not be on this list anymore. Rumors persisted of their interest in selling the team after the death of Ted Lerner last February. But it was recently reported that any and all potential deals fell through and so the Lerners remain at the head of the Nats as they continue to enjoy the money he made in real estate.
Ted Lerner was able to see the franchise won their first-ever World Series title in 2019 thanks in part to a few high-priced salaries in the form of Stephen Strasburg and Max Scherzer.
1. Steve Cohen, New York Mets (Net Worth: $19.8 Billion)
No surprise at all here. Steve Cohen takes the top spot. He made headlines when he first purchased the New York Mets back in 2020 for $2.4 billion, promising the fanbase he would not spare a single penny to bring them competitive teams and wins en masse. He has held up part of his end of the bargain, at least. The Mets started throwing money around as soon as they were able, most notably signing both Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander to massive short-term contracts. It did not work out and both are now long gone, with the Mets forced to reset and cool it on the spending.
But, as promised, Cohen isn't thinking of his wallet when it comes to the Mets. He wants wins, and we'll undoubtedly see further proof in the form of big dollar signs in the future.