David Blitzer

David Scott Blitzer (born September 7, 1969) is an American investor and sports team owner. He is a senior executive at the private equity firm Blackstone and co-managing partner of the NBA's Philadelphia 76ers and NHL's New Jersey Devils. A native of New Jersey, he graduated from Penn's Wharton School and joined Blackstone in 1991. Blitzer and Apollo Global Management co-founder Josh Harris are frequent business partners, with the pair establishing Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment in 2017.

Blitzer is also an owner or significant shareholder of several association football clubs, including Crystal Palace, G.D. Estoril Praia, AD Alcorcón, S.K. Beveren, ADO Den Haag, Real Salt Lake, Brøndby IF, and the Utah Royals. He also owns 25% of the MLB's Cleveland Guardians and a minority stake in the NFL's Washington Commanders, making him the first person to own team equity in the five major sports leagues of North America. Blitzer's net worth is estimated to be $2 billion.

Career

Early life and Blackstone

Blitzer was born on September 7, 1969, in Scotch Plains, New Jersey. He graduated from Scotch Plains-Fanwood High School in 1987 and graduated magna cum laude from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1991. Blitzer joined the private equity firm Blackstone shortly after graduation and worked out of London from 2001 to 2011 to oversee the company's interests in Europe. He is a member of their management committee and heads their global Tactical Opportunities group.

Sports management

Blitzer began contemplating investing in sports after meeting Apollo Global Management co-founder Josh Harris in 2008 at The Punchbowl, a pub in London. By 2011, those talks led to the pair forming an investment group that purchased the Philadelphia 76ers of the National Basketball Association (NBA) for $280 million. Other initial members of the group included Art Wrubel, Jason Levien, Adam Aron, Martin Geller, David Heller, James Lassiter, Marc Leder, Michael Rubin, Will Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith, and Erick Thohir. In August 2013, Blitzer and Harris purchased the New Jersey Devils of the National Hockey League (NHL) and their arena, the Prudential Center, for $320 million. Blitzer and investor David Abrams headed a group that owned 50% of the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders, the Triple-A affiliate of the New York Yankees, from 2014 until selling to Diamond Baseball Holdings in 2021.

Blitzer co-founded Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment with Harris in 2017. In addition to the 76ers and Devils, the company also owns the NBA G League's Delaware Blue Coats, the American Hockey League's Utica Comets, esports team Dignitas of New Meta Entertainment, HBSE Real Estate, sports tech venture capital firm HBSE Ventures, and marketing, hospitality, and event ticketing company Elevate Sports Ventures. In January 2022, Blitzer and Qualtrics co-founder Ryan Smith purchased Real Salt Lake of Major League Soccer (MLS) and America First Field, which included the affiliated Real Monarchs and Zions Bank Stadium. The pair also reestablished the Utah Royals of the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL), which had gone defunct in 2020 and became the Kansas City Current. He purchased a 25 percent stake in the MLB's Cleveland Guardians in June 2022, with an option to acquire controlling interest in 2028. Blitzer is the first person to hold team equity in the five major sports leagues of North America: the NBA, NHL, NFL, MLS, and MLB.

Blitzer purchased an 18% stake in the English football club Crystal Palace in 2015. He later formed Global Football Holdings, which has invested in G.D. Estoril Praia (Portugal), AD Alcorcón (Spain), S.K. Beveren (Belgium), FC Augsburg (Germany), ADO Den Haag (Netherlands), and Brøndby IF (Denmark). In 2020, Blitzer and Harris bought a $140 million stake in the Pittsburgh Steelers of the National Football League (NFL). In 2023, he was a part of another group led by Harris that purchased the NFL's Washington Commanders for $6.05 billion, the highest price ever for a sports team. The same year, Blitzer invested in the return of SlamBall, a basketball league combining elements of other sports, and bought a minority stake in Joe Gibbs Racing by way of HBSE in 2023. He was named to the NHL's Executive Committee in October 2023, which is responsible for vetting new ownership applications, collective bargaining, and league expansion. Blitzer and professional golfer Tiger Woods are owners of the Jupiter Links Golf Club of the virtual golf league TGL, founded in 2023. In 2024, he sold his stake in the Steelers to Art Rooney II and Thomas Tull. Blitzer is a member of College Sports Tomorrow, a group formed in 2024 consisting of 20 pro team owners, league executives, and college administrators proposing an overhaul to college football, including abolishing conferences and reorganizing Power Five schools in seven divisions of ten each with a system of promotion and relegation for the rest, in addition to changes to NIL deals and the transfer portal.

Blitzer and Harris have also invested in youth sports, forming the parent company Unrivaled Sports in March 2024 with an investment from The Chernin Group. Assets owned include All Star Village, a youth baseball brand founded by MLB Hall of Famer Cal Ripken Jr., We Are Camp, an Oregon-based sports camp operator managed in partnership with snowboarder and Olympic gold medalist Shaun White, the ForeverLawn Sports Complex at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, YTH Sports, a soccer event organizer, and Diamond Nation, a baseball and softball facility in Flemington, New Jersey.

Properties

Personal life

Blitzer is Jewish. He is married to Allison (née Ross) Blitzer; they have five children. His net worth was estimated by Forbes in November 2023 to be $2.2 billion. Blitzer's father-in-law, Stuart Ross, who once owned the North American rights to The Smurfs franchise, was convicted of extortion in 2010 and sentenced to five years of probation after trying to extort $11 million from Blitzer.

Blitzer founded the Blitzer Family Foundation in 2014. He is on the board of trustees of Mount Sinai Health System and Wharton School and is a donor to Hillel International, an organization helping Jewish students. He participated in sports business panels hosted by the Wharton School in 2019 and Sportico in 2022.

References

External links

• Blackstone profile
• HBSE profile