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Former longtime Vikings tight end Kyle Rudolph is all for private equity in the NFL, telling Front Office Sports the new source of capital provides teams with more financial flexibility, particularly when it comes to paying players.
Four NFL teams have taken on private-equity investors since the league approved limited PE ownership in the summer of 2024. Today, Sixth Street Partners has a 3% stake in the Patriots, Arctos Partners owns 10% stakes in the Bills and Chargers, and Ares Management holds a 10% stake in the Dolphins. The NFL has slow-walked its embrace of PE by permitting only a select group of firms to invest: In addition to the above trio, there’s an approved consortium consisting of Carlyle Group, Dynasty Equity, and Ludis, the latter of which was founded and is led by Pro Football Hall of Famer Curtis Martin.
Although the league hasn’t committed to approving additional firms, experts expect more PE players will get the green light to invest in NFL teams before long. And while the NFL isn’t a sure bet for private equity, Rudolph says private equity is a “great” bet for the NFL.
“I think it’s great,” he said during a recent interview at FOS headquarters in New York City. “Obviously, you have to crawl before you can walk, and you have to walk before you can run.”
Rudolph’s optimism is rooted in a distinction that he believes is often overlooked in discussions about NFL team finances: While every team operates under the same salary cap, not every owner has the same amount of cash available. Owners with more cash can offer players larger signing bonuses to structure contracts in ways that reduce their immediate salary-cap charges because those bonuses can be given up front, but their impact against the cap can be prorated over the life of the contract (up to a maximum of five years, under NFL rules).
By introducing private equity, NFL teams, which are assets that Rudolph said are “traditionally not very liquid” can receive significant injections of cash. This can impact different teams in different ways. The richest owners, like the Walton-Penner group that owns the Broncos, are less reliant on such cash infusions than those like the Brown family that owns the Bengals.
“They had to find ways to pay Joe Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase, and Tee Higgins,” Rudolph said.
While the Bengals aren’t one of the teams that have taken on private-equity investment, Rudolph is right that Cincinnati used signing bonuses for two of the three players: Burrow got a $40 million signing bonus when he reached his five-year, $275 million contract, and Chase got a $15 million signing bonus with his four-year, $161 million deal. Higgins did not have a signing bonus on his four-year, $115 million contract.
Rudolph, who retired in 2023 and now spends much of his time working on his philanthropic endeavor Alltroo, said the ability for teams to obtain more cash through private-equity investment is especially beneficial because when teams sign players, they are required to put all guaranteed money into a separate account.
“In the NFL, the moment that contract’s signed, the guaranteed money has to go into an escrow account,” he told FOS. “All of it.”
According to Rudolph, that rule was originally put in place to protect players from issues like an owner going bankrupt, or the league itself folding.
“Obviously, that’s never gonna happen in 2026,” he said. “But it’s still a rule that applies.”
Rudolph believes the NFL will eventually open the door to more private-equity investment, and he forecasts teams using the cash that can be made from PE deals to help sign players while reducing their cap hits.
“When you introduce private equity, one of the good things that it does is make these assets a little more liquid, and you won’t have such a struggle with cash,” he said.
