David Beckham & Inter Miami: Ownership, Stake, and Value, Explained

In 2007, David Beckham signed a contract that included one unusual clause: the right to buy an MLS expansion team for $25 million. Today, that clause is an estimated $300 million-plus stake in Inter Miami, a club worth up to $1.45 billion.

Here’s the short version of the David Beckham Inter Miami story. Beckham co-owns the club with brothers Jorge and Jose Mas. Forbes estimates his stake at roughly 26%, though the club has never disclosed official percentages. Jorge Mas runs the business as managing owner. Beckham is the president and global face.

The longer version is stranger. It includes $39 million of debt, a $50 million offer to walk away, and a contract clause Lionel Messi now holds too. Let’s get into it.

Who Actually Owns Inter Miami? (Quick Answer)

Inter Miami has three co-owners: David Beckham, Jorge Mas, and Jose Mas. That’s been the full ownership group since September 2021.

Beckham’s share is an estimated 26%, per Forbes — worth north of $300 million as of June 2026. The exact split among the three owners has never been officially disclosed, so treat every percentage you read as an outside estimate, not a club statement.

One more name matters: Ares Management. The investment firm put $150 million into the club in 2021 and another $75 million in 2023 — but as preferred equity, not ownership. Ares has no day-to-day role. Its capital helped fund the club’s new stadium district.

So the structure looks like this:

The $25 Million Clause That Started It All

When Beckham left Real Madrid for the LA Galaxy in 2007, his contract included an option to buy an MLS expansion franchise for a fixed $25 million — in any market except New York. He was 32. The league needed his star power and paid for it in future equity.

That price was low even then, and it aged into an outright steal. Toronto FC had paid a $10 million expansion fee in 2007, so $25 million looked reasonable at signing. What nobody priced in was how fast MLS entry fees would climb.

Beckham exercised the option in February 2014, months after retiring, and chose Miami. He later said he fell for the US during the 1994 World Cup, and he bet on Miami’s Latin American soccer culture to attract great players.

And the money side made sense too. Beckham had earned roughly $255 million across his Galaxy years in salary, revenue share, and endorsements. The $25 million was a fraction of what the deal had already paid him.

The Years It Nearly Died

The Miami project spent its first years going nowhere. Between 2014 and 2018, three separate stadium plans collapsed, and the venture sank $39 million into debt.

Beckham called it “the biggest challenge in my career personally and professionally” at the Forbes Iconoclast Summit in June 2026. That’s not standard owner-speak. The project genuinely stalled for years while other expansion teams launched around it.

It got bad enough that MLS commissioner Don Garber offered to buy the option back for $50 million. Doubling his money on a stuck project — plenty of investors would have taken it.

“No, Don, I believe in this.”
— Beckham on refusing the league’s $50M buy-back offer, as told at the Forbes Iconoclast Summit, June 2026

The turnaround started in late 2017. The Mas brothers — Miami construction billionaires with the local political weight the project lacked — joined as co-owners in December. MLS formally approved the franchise in January 2018. Inter Miami kicked off in the 2020 season.

The 2021 Buyout: How Beckham’s Stake Grew

The original ownership group was bigger than today’s. SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son and businessman Marcelo Claure held roughly 48% between them.

In September 2021, Beckham and the Mas brothers bought them out entirely. The same month, Ares Management made its first $150 million preferred equity investment. That single transaction created the ownership structure that exists today — and it reportedly grew Beckham’s personal stake in the process.

Here’s the full timeline:

David Beckham’s Role at Inter Miami: Owner or Just the Face?

Fans ask this constantly, and the honest answer is: both roles exist, and they belong to different people.

Jorge Mas is the operator. He holds the Managing Owner and CEO titles, negotiates the major deals, and gave the public financial details of the Messi contract. When Inter Miami announced its stadium naming-rights partner in March 2026, Mas gave the statements.

Beckham is the president and the club’s global identity. His lane is brand, football vision, and recruitment — and that lane matters more than the “figurehead” label suggests. Per Jorge Mas, Beckham spent his time with Messi talking “only about the football side of things” during a pursuit that ran three years.

Think of it as a division of labor. Mas builds the business. Beckham makes world-class players want to play for it. Neither works without the other.

The Messi Deal — and the Equity Clause Beckham Knows Well

Messi’s original 2023 contract ran two and a half years at roughly $150 million total — about $50–60 million per year, according to Jorge Mas. But the salary was only part of the structure.

That last line should sound familiar. It’s the Beckham playbook, one generation later: MLS rules bar active players from holding club equity, so the stake waits until the playing career ends. Beckham got his option in 2007. Messi got his in 2023.

Note: Messi’s potential stake size has never been confirmed by the club or the league. A 2022 report claiming a 35% stake was denied by Messi’s camp. Any specific percentage you see is speculation.

Messi signed an extension through 2028 in October 2025 — inside the then-unfinished new stadium. And in January 2026, he told Argentine streamer Luzu TV he’d rather become a club owner than a coach after retiring. The clause isn’t a footnote. It’s his stated plan.

What Inter Miami Is Worth Now

Short answer: between $1.35 billion and $1.45 billion as of February 2026, depending on who’s counting. Either number makes Inter Miami the most valuable club in MLS — a title it took from LAFC for the first time.

The trajectory is the story:

Why do Forbes and Sportico disagree by $100 million? Neither is wrong — they measure different things. Forbes estimates what the club would fetch in a hypothetical control sale, before debt. Sportico includes team-related businesses and real estate held by the owners. Miami’s owners hold a lot of real estate, so Sportico’s number runs higher. When you see either figure quoted alone, that’s the missing context.

The value drivers stack up fast. Inter Miami won its first MLS Cup in December 2025, beating Vancouver 3–1 with two Messi assists. Revenue hit roughly $200 million in 2025 and projects to $250 million for 2026 — the highest in MLS, up from under $70 million before Messi arrived, per Forbes.

Then came the stadium. Nu Stadium — a 26,700-seat, privately funded venue that Forbes pegs at roughly $350 million — opened April 4, 2026, anchoring the $1 billion, 131-acre Miami Freedom Park development next to Miami International Airport. Brazilian digital bank Nu (131 million customers) took naming rights in March 2026 in one of the largest such deals for an MLS soccer-specific stadium, and its logo hits the back of the club’s best-selling jerseys in August 2026.

The club is even starting to act like an investment firm. In May 2026, Inter Miami took an equity stake in Prenetics — the Nasdaq-listed parent of IM8, the supplement brand Beckham co-founded — the club’s first equity position in a brand partner.

One caveat on the “most valuable” crown: LAFC sits just $50 million behind at $1.4 billion, per Sportico. Treat the title as a February 2026 snapshot, not a permanent fact.

Is Beckham a Billionaire Because of Inter Miami?

Forbes says yes. In May 2026, it formally named Beckham a billionaire, estimating his fortune at $1 billion — and called his Inter Miami stake the biggest chunk of it. That puts him alongside Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Tiger Woods, and Roger Federer among athlete billionaires.

The Sunday Times goes further on a family basis. Its 2026 Rich List puts David and Victoria’s combined fortune at £1.185 billion (about $1.58 billion), roughly double the prior year’s figure.

Not everyone agrees. Celebrity Net Worth disputes the billionaire label, estimating the couple’s combined wealth closer to $700 million. The gap comes down to methodology — how you value the Inter Miami stake, the Freedom Park real estate, and businesses Beckham partially sold. So the honest framing: Beckham is a billionaire by Forbes’ count, and the answer depends on whether you’re measuring his personal fortune or the family empire. For the full breakdown, see our David Beckham net worth analysis.

What’s not in dispute: Inter Miami is the single largest driver either way. A knighthood arrived in November 2025 too — it’s Sir David Beckham now — which he described as “It doesn’t get better than that.”

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