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Sports EdgeWELL POURJune 29, 20263 min readAd-free
Crystal Palace Owners Harris-Blitzer Explore Sale After £200M Valuation Jump
The partners behind the 76ers are testing appetite for a club whose Premier League TV deal just jumped 30%.
Sports Edge deskSports Edge · Huang GoodmanSource: Financial Times ↗
In plain words
Harris-Blitzer exploring Palace sale at **£700M** valuation after **3.5x** gain, banking new Premier League broadcast bump before market reprices it.
£200 million
in 2015
56%
of the club through Harris Blitzer Sports &
45%
and Parish retaining a slice
£700 million
per three people briefed on the process
Josh Harris and David Blitzer, the Philadelphia 76ers owners who bought Crystal Palace for £200 million in 2015, have engaged advisors to explore a sale of the South London club. The pair control 56% of the club through Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, with John Textor holding 45% and Parish retaining a slice. Current enterprise value conversations start at £700 million, per three people briefed on the process.
The timeline matters. Premier League clubs will bank £2.2 billion annually starting in 2025 under the new domestic broadcast deal—a 30% jump from the current cycle. Palace's share of that works out to roughly £100 million in distribution versus £76 million today, before a ball is kicked. Harris and Blitzer bought in when Palace was rebuilding post-relegation and the TV deal was half the size. Their basis math: 3.5x return on paper in nine years, even with the club sitting mid-table.
The strategic rationale for selling now is the same calculation every Premier League minority bloc is running. American institutional buyers have pushed mid-tier Premier League club valuations past 10x revenue on the strength of that broadcast floor, turning once-speculative Championship stakes into quasi-infrastructure assets. Harris-Blitzer has been disciplined capital allocators across their portfolio—New Jersey Devils, Pittsburgh Steelers minority, 76ers—and they know the cycle. Sell into the distribution bump, not after it's priced in.
What Palace brings: a 26,000-capacity Selhurst Park with planning permission already secured for a 34,000-seat rebuild, and a South London catchment pulling corporate season-ticket revenue from Croydon to Bromley. The academy is mid-table Premier League standard—Eberechi Eze and Marc Guéhi both came through the system and now anchor the first team. Manager Oliver Glasner has the squad in 12th place with 30 points from 25 matches, comfortably clear of the relegation zone and boring enough to reassure spreadsheet buyers.
Textor's 45% stake complicates any sale structure. He has been vocal about wanting full control of a Premier League club after his attempt to buy Everton collapsed, and he still owns Lyon in Ligue 1. UEFA multi-club ownership rules forbid him from controlling two clubs in Europe simultaneously, which means any Harris-Blitzer exit likely forces Textor to either sell alongside them or trigger a messy dilution negotiation. The cleanest path is a single buyer taking majority control and buying out both blocs at once.
The buyer pool: Saudi PIF has been quiet since Newcastle but remains active in club assessments. American private equity groups—Arctos, Ares, RedBird—have all scanned the lower Premier League tier for late-stage entry points. One name circulating in London: Bill Foley, who bought Bournemouth in 2022 for £120 million and has since explored adding a second English club through a holding structure. Palace would fit that model.
Harris-Blitzer has not set a formal deadline, but advisors expect indicative bids by late March. The club's lease on Selhurst runs through 2030, and the stadium rebuild carries a £150 million price tag that any new owner must either fund or refinance. That capital call will frame negotiations.
Palace's next five fixtures include trips to Tottenham and Manchester United. Mid-table safety is the only target that matters for valuation. The last Premier League club sale at this scale was Bournemouth at £120 million pre-TV bump; Palace is now triple that on the same fundamentals. The TV deal did the work.
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