Steve Ballmer, owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, is the richest NBA owner as of November 2026, with a net worth we estimate at about $162 billion. That is more than the other nine owners on this list combined, with plenty left over. We rank the controlling owners and lead governors of the 30 NBA teams by personal fortune, counting only money they built themselves.
Owners whose fortunes were mainly inherited, and buyers whose deals have not closed, are covered in the special mentions after the countdown.
| Rank | Name | Net worth (USD) | Main source of wealth |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | Mat Ishbia | $4.4 billion | Phoenix Suns, UWM mortgage lender |
| 9 | Joe Tsai | $8.8 billion | Brooklyn Nets parent BSE Global, Alibaba |
| 8 | Tilman Fertitta | $9.5 billion | Landry’s, Golden Nugget, Houston Rockets |
| 7 | Tom Gores | $10.6 billion | Platinum Equity, Detroit Pistons |
| 6 | Tony Ressler | $11 billion | Ares Management, Atlanta Hawks |
| 5 | Josh Harris | $12.1 billion | Apollo, 26North, Philadelphia 76ers |
| 4 | Dan Gilbert | $23.2 billion | Rocket Companies, Cleveland Cavaliers |
| 3 | Stan Kroenke | $27.6 billion | Real estate, land, Kroenke Sports |
| 2 | Robert Pera | $29.6 billion | Ubiquiti, Memphis Grizzlies |
| 1 | Steve Ballmer | $162 billion | Microsoft shares, Los Angeles Clippers |
The NBA’s 10 richest owners, counted down
10. Mat Ishbia: $4.4 billion
Mat Ishbia was a walk-on guard at Michigan State, the kind of player who mostly saw the floor when the game was already won. He made up for it in business. Ishbia joined United Wholesale Mortgage, the Michigan lender his father Jeff founded in 1986, and turned it into the biggest wholesale mortgage shop in the country. He runs what is now UWM Holdings as chairman and CEO. The family holding company he controls owns about 79% of it, and trusts for his brother Justin hold a 23% economic interest in that holding company.
In 2023 the brothers bought control of the Phoenix Suns and the WNBA’s Mercury in a deal that valued the franchises at $4 billion, then a record for an NBA club. Ishbia spent heavily on stars right away, and the Mercury became a playoff contender again under his watch.
UWM stock closed at $1.36 on November 11, 2026, down from about $4.40 in February, so the teams now make up about two thirds of our figure. The split of the teams between Mat and Justin isn’t public; we assume Mat holds 60%, worth about $3.05 billion at the Suns’ October 2025 value, and his part of UWM comes to about $1.33 billion.
9. Joe Tsai: $8.8 billion
In 1999 Joe Tsai was a Taiwanese-born, Yale-trained private equity lawyer who took a huge pay cut to join a tiny Chinese internet startup run by Jack Ma. That startup was Alibaba. Tsai handled the money and the legal structure, and he is now its chairman.
He bought into the Brooklyn Nets in 2018 and took full control in 2019, along with Barclays Center. In 2024 Julia Koch and her family agreed to buy a stake in the parent company, BSE Global, reported at 15% and a $6 billion valuation, a deal that put a fresh price tag on everything he owns in Brooklyn. Tsai and his wife Clara own the WNBA’s New York Liberty, who won their first title in 2024.
Brooklyn is now the bigger half: we count about 85% of BSE Global, roughly $5.3 billion at its October 2025 value. On top come the Alibaba shares he owns, about $1.45 billion, and $1.87 billion in shares held by Parufam Limited, a company he directs. Alibaba’s annual report says he has no personal financial interest in the Parufam shares; we count them as his family’s money, and without them he would be at about $6.8 billion.
8. Tilman Fertitta: $9.5 billion
Tilman Fertitta opened the first Landry’s seafood restaurant in Katy, Texas, in 1980 and became its sole owner eight years later. He took the company public in 1993 and bought it back in full in 2010. Along the way he added Golden Nugget casinos, Morton’s, Mastro’s and hundreds of other restaurants and hotels.
In 2017 he paid $2.2 billion for his hometown Houston Rockets, an NBA record at the time. He has kept buying: by April 2025 he was the largest shareholder in Wynn Resorts, with about 12.3% of the casino company, and he has bought the WNBA’s Connecticut Sun to move the team to Houston as the Comets.
The Rockets, valued at about $6.35 billion less team debt, are the biggest piece of the estimate. His Wynn stake adds roughly $1.1 billion, and Fertitta Entertainment, priced against listed restaurant and casino peers, plus his real estate make up the rest.
7. Tom Gores: $10.6 billion
Tom Gores was born in Israel, grew up in Flint, Michigan, and started Platinum Equity in 1995 with his own money. The firm made its name buying unloved corporate divisions that bigger players had stopped caring about, fixing the operations and selling them on. Today it oversees more than 60 companies and roughly $48 billion in assets.
Gores and Platinum bought the Detroit Pistons in 2011. Four years later he bought out the firm’s stake and now owns 100% of the team. Gores paid for a $90 million practice facility and headquarters in Detroit that opened in 2019.
The estimate is mostly his share of Platinum Equity’s profits and capital, with the fully owned Pistons on top.
6. Tony Ressler: $11 billion
Tony Ressler has a rare double on his resume: he helped start Apollo in 1990 and then cofounded Ares Management in 1997. Ares grew into one of the largest private credit managers in the world, lending to companies that banks no longer want to touch. Ressler stepped down as CEO in 2017 and stayed on as executive chairman, and his Ares shares have been the main engine of his fortune ever since.
He led the group that bought the Atlanta Hawks in 2015 and is the majority owner. On the side, he holds a minority stake in baseball’s Milwaukee Brewers, which makes him one of the few owners with seats at two leagues’ tables.
Our number starts with the 54.3 million Ares shares and units the company’s 2026 proxy credits to him, about $7.5 billion at the November 11, 2026 price. We add an assumed 51% of the Hawks, about $2.6 billion, and about $0.9 billion of Ares dividends after tax. His Brewers stake isn’t counted because its size isn’t public.
5. Josh Harris: $12.1 billion
Josh Harris met Leon Black and Marc Rowan at Drexel Burnham Lambert, and in 1990 the three cofounded Apollo Global Management. He left in 2022 and started 26North, an investment firm that now manages about $37 billion.
Harris collects teams the way some people collect watches. With partner David Blitzer he built Harris Blitzer Sports and Entertainment, which owns the Philadelphia 76ers and the NHL’s New Jersey Devils. In 2023 he led the roughly $6 billion purchase of the NFL’s Washington Commanders. A former college wrestler, he still runs marathons and triathlons.
The figure combines his remaining Apollo wealth, his stake in 26North and his shares of three major league franchises.
4. Dan Gilbert: $23.2 billion
At 22, while still in law school, Dan Gilbert cofounded Rock Financial with his brother and two friends. Intuit bought it in 2000 and renamed the online arm Quicken Loans, and Gilbert bought it back two years later. The business became Rocket Mortgage and went public as Rocket Companies in 2020, with Gilbert holding about 79% of the shares. In 2025 Rocket agreed to buy home search site Redfin and loan servicer Mr. Cooper, building a one-stop shop for buying a house.
He bought the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2005 for $375 million, a record price then. Through his Bedrock real estate firm he has also bought and rebuilt a big piece of downtown Detroit, with about $7.5 billion invested so far.
We started from his Rocket stake at today’s share price and added the Cavaliers and Bedrock’s Detroit property.
3. Stan Kroenke: $27.6 billion
Stan Kroenke made his first fortune building shopping centers and apartments across the Midwest, often near Walmart stores, starting with the Kroenke Group in 1983. Then he bought land. A lot of it. After adding Texas’s Waggoner Ranch in 2016, he is now the largest private landowner in America, with more than 2.7 million acres across the West and Canada.
His sports company owns the Denver Nuggets, who won the 2023 NBA title, plus the NHL’s Colorado Avalanche, MLS’s Colorado Rapids, England’s Arsenal and the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams, who play in the SoFi Stadium he built in Inglewood. In September 2026 his company agreed to buy baseball’s Los Angeles Angels in a deal reported to value the team at about $4 billion, with closing expected in early 2027.
The number rests on his share of five teams at recent sale prices, the stadium district and his land holdings, and leaves out his wife’s separate Walmart fortune.
2. Robert Pera: $29.6 billion
Robert Pera was a young Apple engineer testing Wi-Fi gear when his bosses passed on his idea for longer-range wireless. So in 2005 he quit and started Ubiquiti with about $30,000 of savings and credit card debt. The company sells networking equipment with almost no sales force and a famously lean staff, and it went public in 2011.
A year later Pera bought the Memphis Grizzlies, reportedly for about $350 million, and became the youngest controlling owner in the league. He still owns about 93% of Ubiquiti, so when its stock moves, he moves with it, and recent years have pushed both sharply higher.
Ubiquiti stock at the current price does almost all of the work here, with the Grizzlies as a small extra.
1. Steve Ballmer: $162 billion
Steve Ballmer joined Microsoft in 1980 as employee number 30, recruited by his Harvard friend Bill Gates. He ran the company as CEO from 2000 to 2014 and walked away with about 4% of its stock. Unlike most retirees, he barely sold any of it. That patience is the whole story: as Microsoft rode cloud computing and AI to one of the largest market values on Earth, a stake he already owned turned him into one of the ten richest people alive.
He paid a record $2 billion for the Clippers in 2014, a price that looked wild then and looks cheap now. He then spent about $2 billion more to build Intuit Dome in Inglewood, which opened in 2024 and finally gave the team a home of its own. Ballmer funds USAFacts, a nonprofit that publishes plain government spending data.
Our model values his roughly 4% of Microsoft at today’s share price, adds the Clippers and the arena, and allows for cash from dividends.
Special mentions
- Miriam Adelson and family (Dallas Mavericks), about $32 billion: the family bought control of the Mavericks from Mark Cuban in 2023, but the fortune comes from the Las Vegas Sands casino company built by her husband, Sheldon Adelson.
- Micky Arison (Miami Heat), about $12 billion: he ran Carnival as CEO for 34 years, but his father Ted cofounded the cruise line, so the money started as a family inheritance.
- Josh Kushner (Los Angeles Lakers), up to about $17 billion: the Thrive Capital founder agreed in August 2026 to buy control of the Lakers with Bob Iger at a record $12.5 billion valuation. Estimates of his fortune range from about $5 billion to $17 billion, so once the deal closes he could rank as high as fifth on this list.
- Mark Walter (Los Angeles Lakers): the Guggenheim Partners chief bought control of the Lakers from the Buss family in 2025 at a $10 billion valuation and agreed to sell it on less than a year later.
What the richest NBA owners have in common
- The team is the side dish. Even Ballmer’s Clippers, worth billions, are a rounding error next to his Microsoft shares. Every owner here got rich first and bought a team second.
- Finance and software dominate. Three of the ten made their money managing other people’s money (Gores, Ressler, Harris), three rode tech (Ballmer, Pera, Tsai), and two got rich writing home loans (Gilbert, Ishbia). Fertitta made his serving shrimp and dealing cards, and Kroenke his in property and land.
- Prices only go one way. Gilbert’s $375 million in 2005 and Ballmer’s $2 billion in 2014 were called overpays. The Lakers have since changed hands at $10 billion and then $12.5 billion.
- Concentrated stakes win. Pera owns 93% of his company, Ballmer never sold, and Gilbert held 79% of Rocket at its IPO. Owning one thing in size made the biggest fortunes on this list.
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FAQ
Who is the richest NBA owner?
Steve Ballmer, owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, is the richest NBA owner with an estimated net worth of about $162 billion in November 2026, mostly from his Microsoft shares.
Who is the second richest owner in the NBA?
Robert Pera, founder of Ubiquiti and owner of the Memphis Grizzlies, is second at about $29.6 billion.
How much is the 10th richest NBA owner worth?
Mat Ishbia of the Phoenix Suns is 10th with an estimated $4.4 billion. Most of it is his share of the Suns and Mercury; the rest is his part of mortgage lender UWM.
How much did Steve Ballmer pay for the Clippers?
Ballmer bought the Los Angeles Clippers in 2014 for $2 billion, a record for an NBA team at the time.
Who owns the Lakers now?
Mark Walter bought control of the Lakers from the Buss family in 2025. In August 2026 he agreed to sell to a group led by Josh Kushner and Bob Iger for a reported $12.5 billion.
Who is the youngest owner on this list?
Mat Ishbia, 46 according to UWM’s 2026 proxy statement, is the youngest owner in our top 10. Robert Pera is close behind and was the league’s youngest controlling owner when he bought the Grizzlies in 2012.
How we estimate net worth
Our estimates are based on public reporting, company valuations, and deal and earnings figures all compiled in an internal valuation model. They are approximate, and figures change over time as new information emerges.
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Last updated: November 2026.
