Why would anyone spend $24 million to buy a 1 percent stake in the New York Yankees? Minority ownership seems like a lose-lose proposition: A lot of money for very little power. For wealthy sports fans, though, it’s cool -- and can be one heck of a tax shelter.
Owning a piece of a team can create the kind of on-paper losses that cut a wealthy owner’s bill to the Internal Revenue Service. A sports team “spits out losses that offset other income," says Murray Solomon, a tax partner at the accounting firm EisnerAmper in New York City. “Then at the end of the day, you can sell the investment and make money.”
