Former car salesman Bernie Ecclestone is best known as the man behind the Formula One racing competition, but he’s now been in the billionaire ranks for seven years. The key to his empire is television rights. Ecclestone grabbed control of the business in 1997 and turned it into a global franchise that now turns over more than $1.5 billion a year.
Ecclestone still controls the F1 business, but sold out in 2006 to private equity firm CVC. However, that deal has attracted controversy; Gerhard Gribkowsky, a banker who oversaw the sale, was recently jailed for taking what he claimed was a $44 million bribe from Ecclestone to push the deal through for the billionaire.
Ecclestone has not been charged with anything and says he paid Gribkowsky after the lawyer threatened to give false information about his tax affairs to regulators.
Glazer is another sporting team owner who straddles both sides of the Atlantic: he owns the NFL team the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the English Premier League team Manchester United.
The latter is weighed down with debt of $647 million and in the last few days the Glazer family have revealed plans to raise about $360 million by floating the club on the New York Stock Exchange. While the Glazer family has not been a popular owner of the club, they are likely to get a decent return – they bought the club for $1.4 billion in 2005 and the float would value it at $3 billion.
Kevin Plank’s name will not be familiar to many followers of the Australian Football League, but the distinctive logo of his company Under Armour probably will be – the company is the official “high performance apparel” partner of the league and its umpires wear Under Armour gear each weekend (although it’s not clear whether it helps protect them from the barrage of abuse they routinely receive).
Plank’s idea for the business came from seeing how cotton T-shirts became heavy when drenched with sweat during exercise. He created a prototype moisture-wicking shirt and used the funds from some credit cards and his flower distribution business to launch Under Armour.
Today the business turns over $1.5 billion and Plank’s wealth has surged.
James Thomson is a former editor of BRW’s Rich 200 and the publisher of SmartCompany and LeadingCompany.
James was the editor and publisher of SmartCompany and LeadingCompany for five years. He is now the Australian Financial Review‘s companies & markets editor, and a former BRW editor.
