Michael B. Jordan is now part owner of AFC Bournemouth, a soccer team that competes in the English Premier League.
The Black Knight Football Club recently acquired AFC Bournemouth, and because Jordan is a minority owner of the group, it grants him his part-owner status.
The team was bought for $150 million in October, Bleacher Report reported.
Soccer Partnership
The actor, director and producer’s sports partners are Nullah Sarker, a former adviser of The Players’ Tribune and founder of Kosmos Holdings, and billionaire majority owner Bill Foley of Cannae Holdings, the founder and owner of the National Hockey League’s Vegas Golden Knights.
Together, they plan on globalizing the club’s marketing efforts and making it an international brand.
Jordan: Rare Black stakeholder in the top league
The 77-year-old Foley owns 50.1 percent of the soccer AFC club. Not all of the minority owners are listed, and details indicating whether or not they are Black investors are limited as well. However, Black Footballers Partnership found Black people represented 4.4 percent in EPL and English Football League who hold administrative positions clubs last year, according to Bloomberg,
Among excutives, ownership or leadership positions, Black people account hold 1.6 percent, with Patrick Vieira of the Crystal Palace FC being the only Black manager in the EPL.
There were two Black general managers and two Black head coaches of Major League Soccer teams, according to Nov. 2021 data by the Black Soccer Membership Association, including 5-year-old Olympia Ohanian, the daughter of Serena Williams and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. Olympia has a stake in the Angel City FC, a women’s club in Los Angeles.
The Actor Jordan in the Sports World
This is not the first time Jordan, whose net worth is $25 million, invested big in sports.
In 2021, co-founded the Invesco QQQ Legacy Classic, a college basketball showcase featuring historically Black colleges and universities. The second event will be held on Feb. 4, 2023, at Prudential Center in Newark, N.J.
The first event saw over 20 HBCUs participating in the event, with corporate partners donating approximately $370,000 to the Thurgood Marshall College Fund and participating schools.
Jordan, WME Sports (the sports division of WME, an Endeavor company), Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, and Scout Sports and Entertainment created the classic.
Jordan’s venture goes beyond sports. The inaugural HBCU-centric event also included an NBA 2K tournament and a career fair that featured celebs like Michael Vick, Claudia Jordan, Micahel Rainey Jr., and companies like Morgan Stanely, Capital One, and Wasserman.
The event also included an Invesco QQQ Legacy Classic pitch competition featuring HBCU students and alumni competing for funding for their entrepreneurial ventures. Winners received $1 million in structured investments from Serena Williams’ investment company, Serena Ventures, and MaC Venture Capital.
“I called up a couple buddies of mine — Charles King over at MaC Ventures and Serena Williams over at Serena Ventures — and we wanted to do something to sway the system a little bit,” Jordan said. “We put together $1 million for Black entrepreneurs, it’s a crazy stat that less than 2% of venture capital goes toward Black founders. Black ideas, Black products, Black dreams, it’s their chance to take it home.”
