Billionaire Marcelo Claure now owns a piece of New York City FC

(Corrected 9/24 to clarify details of New York Yankees ownership stake.)

The New York City FC ownership group has been transformed as billionaire entrepreneur Marcelo Claure has purchased a 10% stake in the team, the club has announced.

City Football Group maintains their primary 80% ownership of the team, while the New York Yankees – part-owners and stadium landlords since NYCFC's founding – changed their stake from 20% ownership of only the team to 10% ownership, along with Claure, of a newly-created holding company that controls the team and its planned new soccer stadium in Willets Point.

Claure might be a familiar name to followers of Major League Soccer and/or City Football Group. He was part of the original Inter Miami CF ownership group until August 2021, when he was bought out of his stake by the brothers Jorge and Jose Mas, who along with David Beckham still own and operate the team.

According to a comprehensive 2018 profile of Claure from the Miami Herald, he originally held a 35% stake in Inter Miami, at least before that 2021 deal which saw Claure and fellow co-owner – Masayoshi Son of SoftBank – sell their combined 48% piece of Inter Miami to the Mas brothers in a transaction that ultimately valued Inter Miami at $600-650 million.

Claure's time as owner in Miami ended under slightly surreal circumstances: As reported by Paul Tenorio of The Athletic, Claure was the one who informed MLS commissioner Don Garber of the numerous roster rule violations going down with Inter Miami in its 2020 expansion season. That led to stiff punishments and fines for Miami, the Mas brothers, and then-sporting director Paul McDonough, with Claure and fellow owner David Beckham cleared of any wrongdoing by MLS.

Claure's ownership experience isn't limited to this sightly messy MLS past, as he also has a significant connection to City Football Group. In 2008, Claure – who is Bolivian-American, the son of a Bolivian United Nations geologist – bought Club Bolivar, a historic and long-successful club based in La Paz.

Club Bolivar eventually became City Football Group's first-ever "partner club" in 2021. That took place one year after Claure purchased a 35% stake in Girona FC. Girona has enjoyed meteoric success in the last few seasons since making it back to Spain's top-flight La Liga, finishing third in 2023-2024 after placing tenth in 2022-2023.

Claure made his business name by founding Brightstar, a cell phone company that targeted Latin America and eventually sold a 57% stake to SoftBank for a reported $1.26 billion. He worked in the C-suite for SoftBank, and also was CEO of Sprint, a role that saw him oversee the merger of onetime competitors Sprint and T-Mobile.

Forbes estimates that Claure is currently worth $2 billion. The 10% of New York City FC and its new stadium that Claure just purchased figures to be worth around $100 million if you want to take it one step further down the "valuation" based on the $840-$850 million team valuations shared earlier this year by Sportico and Forbes. A new Sportico report published today says Claure is acquiring a stake in the team and in the future Queens stadium in a "a deal that values the entity at roughly $1.5 billion," according to Sportico.

NYCFC valued at $840 million

LAFC, Atlanta United, Inter Miami, and LA Galaxy are now billion-dollar clubs.

Hudson River BlueOliver Strand

Claure enters the ownership of the club at a high price, but it's interesting to see the New York Yankees also reduce their share of NYCFC in light of what Brad Sims, NYCFC CEO, told Hudson River Blue in an interview in March. When asked about the Yankees as owners, Sims said in part "They’re in it for the long haul, they’re with us in Queens, and I don’t think they are ever going to let go of their part of New York City FC. They might, I could be wrong, but they’ve been super supportive."

(Correction: Comments from NYCFC CEO clarified that the Yankees ownership stake was not reduced, instead reorganized to be 10% ownership of team and stadium. Read those comments here.)

The NYCFC share sale comes two years into the Yankees – or more specifically their business arm Yankee Global Enterprises – taking a minority stake in AC Milan, who they just brought over to play a summer friendly against Manchester City at Yankee Stadium, and who they are now teaming up with on crossover Milan-Yankees apparel.

The vision for New York City FC as it heads toward opening the city's first soccer-specific stadium in 2027 continues to evolve. The brand is being "refreshed" to include a new club badge, and now the ownership group has changed significantly with the arrival of Marcelo Claure.