🔊 Chinese Billionaire Buys A Stake In The Miami Dolphins At Record Valuation

This week, Vice Chairman and Co-Founder of the consumer-electronics company Xiaomi, Lin Bin, acquired a 1% stake in the holding company that owns the NFL’s Miami Dolphins.

The same company owns the Dolphins’ home field (Hard Rock Stadium), the Miami Grand Prix (Formula 1), and the Miami Open (ATP Masters 1000, WTA 1000).

While the purchase price is undisclosed, the company’s agreed valuation is $12.5 billion, implying the purchase price is approximately $125 million.

Why This Matters? 

In October 2025, the Koch family acquired a 10% stake in the New York Giants at a valuation of $10 billion.

The deal set a record for the highest valuation of an NFL team in a sale.

That record lasted less than five months.

The Dolphins' valuation has increased more than 54% in roughly 15 months, a pace that would be extraordinary in any asset class, let alone one that was largely closed to outside capital just 18 months ago.

What’s even crazier is that it isn't driven by on-field performance.

The Dolphins are coming off back-to-back missed playoffs, yet their holding company just transacted at $12.5 billion.

The value is in the ecosystem: Media rights, F1, stadium infrastructure, and the scarcity that comes with owning a piece of it.

What’s also interesting is the timing, as the Seattle Seahawks are currently up for sale.

Less than a month after winning Super Bowl LX, the Paul G. Allen Trust, and Jody Allen, formally launched the Seattle Seahawks sale process.

Though this will be a 100%-ownership sale (a different beast from minority-stake sales) and doesn’t include multiple assets, the Dolphins deal might have moved the goalposts nonetheless.

Industry insiders projected the Seahawks would be acquired somewhere between $9 billion and $11 billion as recently as late February, with some noting it wouldn't be surprising if it exceeded $10 billion.

But that was before Lin Bin's deal reset the comp at $12.5 billion.

Potential bidders reportedly include some of the wealthiest names in the Pacific Northwest, with Steve Ballmer, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and MacKenzie Scott all surfacing in early speculation.

In sports, every new transaction seems to set the floor for the next one.

So the Dolphins deal didn't just break a record; it set a new anchor price for the Seattle Seahawks right as the bidding process is underway.

• Temple Raises $54M. Temple, an India-based neurotechnology wearable company for athletes, raised a $54 million Seed round. Deepinder Goyal led the round with participation from Steadview Capital, Peak XV Partners, Info Edge Ventures, Vy Capital, and Dharana Fund, as well as Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Kunal Shah, Nithin Kamath, Nikhil Kamath, Akshant Goyal, Aditya Mangla, Kunal Swarup, Akriti Chopra, and Rahul Ganjoo. The company plans to use the funds to scale operations and accelerate the development of its patch (more here).

• Eight Sleep Raises $50M. Eight Sleep, a leading sleep tech company, raised a $50 million strategic investment round led by Tether Investments. This brings the company’s valuation to $1.5 billion. With this latest round, Eight Sleep has now raised more than $250 million in total funding. The raise also follows a $100 million round completed in August 2025, when the company was valued at $1 billion. The new capital will support the company’s expansion into what it describes as “predictive, AI-driven health,” extending its data-driven capabilities beyond sleep optimization (more here).

• Roxfit Raises $2.4M. ROXFIT, a digital training platform for hybrid athletes, has raised £1.9 million ($2.4 million) in Seed funding led by DSW Ventures and angel investor Peter Markham. \The platform offers live leaderboards, Garmin and Apple Watch sync, and an AI-powered HYPE training assistant. The capital will help expand the engineering and AI teams while scaling the company’s global ambassador network (more here).

• Equipe Raises $1.5M. Equipe, a customer data platform for sports organizations, announced a $1.5 million investment, according to Sports Business Journal. Game Changers Ventures led the round. The company aggregates fan data from data hubs, such as ticket-buying history, merchandise purchases, and streaming habits, to help sports organizations build intricate profiles and improve personalization. The funding will help them double down on their roadmap and expand the team (more here).

• ŌURA Acquires Doublepoint. ŌURA, maker of the Oura Ring, has acquired Doublepoint, a Helsinki-based AI-driven gesture-recognition startup. Doublepoint specializes in technology that enables users to control wearable devices with small hand movements using a combination of artificial intelligence and biometric data. Financial details were not disclosed (more here).

• Avenue Sports Invests $40M Into NC Courage. Marc Lasry, through his sports-focused private equity fund Avenue Sports Fund, has invested $40 million into the NWSL’s NC Courage, according to Sportico. The deal values the organization at $155 million pre-money. The transaction is awaiting NWSL approval, but does not include a path to full control (more here).

• Tom Dundon Sells 12.5% Of Carolina Hurricanes. Tom Dundon, owner of the Carolina Hurricanes, has sold a 12.5% stake in the franchise at a $2.66 billion valuation, according to Sportico. The deal includes three new minority partners that were not identified. Dundon took full ownership of the NHL team in 2021 and is also leading a separate group that is buying the Portland Trail Blazers, which are valued at a reported $4.25 billion (more here).

• Polymarket & Betr Announce Partnership. Betr, a sports betting company founded by Jake Paul and Joey Levy, and Polymarket, the world's largest prediction market, announced a multi-year partnership to bring prediction markets to Betr users nationwide. Betr will launch prediction markets powered by Polymarket directly within the Betr super app, making event contracts across sports, politics, culture, and more available to one million paying users (more here).

• Chase & Hudl Announce Partnership. Chase and Hudl, an industry leader in sports tech and video analysis, announced a new partnership to help student-athletes and their families build the financial confidence and skills they need to succeed, both on and off the field. As the Official Financial Education Partner of Hudl, Chase is looking to expand its commitment to youth sports and deepen its investment in local communities nationwide (more here).

• F1 & Betway Announce Partnership. Formula 1 (F1) has unveiled Betway, a sports betting outlet, as the sport’s first official betting operator as part of a multi-year deal. The Super Group-owned sports betting brand will take the designation from the start of the upcoming 2026 season. The deal represents the first of its kind in the F1 betting market and will build on sports data and analytics firm ALT Sports Data’s role as the official betting data supplier of the series (more here).

• RAJ Sports & Cllct Announce Partnership. RAJ Sports, the ownership group of the Portland Thorns (NWSL) and Portland Fire (WNBA), announced a partnership with cllct, a digital platform for collectibles, to build the most ambitious women’s sports collectibles ecosystem in the world. Together, they aim to launch a new era of collecting women’s sports experiences rooted in storytelling, provenance, and community (more here).

• OffBall & Togethxr Announce Partnership. Two emerging sports media platforms, Offball and Togethxr, announced a partnership in which Togethxr will take an equity stake in Offball. The brands will work in tandem on sales and operations to advance the companies’ unique growth strategies and generate opportunities to scale across two important, fast-growing areas in sports: women’s sports and sports culture (more here).

• Synergy Sports Capital Announces Official Launch. Former NFL players Terrence Murphy and Reggie Bush announced Synergy Sports Capital, a new US-based private equity firm focused on emerging sports leagues and related sports ecosystem assets. The firm will focus on lower-middle market acquisitions and is targeting approximately $150 million for its inaugural fund (more here).

• Metta World Peace Launches AI-Powered Celebrity Commerce Platform. Through 37 Partners, a revenue-generating talent and IP venture platform, former NBA star Metta World Peace announced the public launch of Perpetual Celebrity Commerce (PCC). PCC is a platform that enables professional talent to deploy officially licensed AI-powered digital likenesses for live commerce and fan engagement across global markets (more here).

• Carlos Vela Joins LAFC Ownership Group. Former LAFC player Carlos Vela is among three new investors acquiring a minority stake in MLS club LAFC, with Brooklyn Nets owner Joe Tsai and Fanatics Collectibles CEO selling their stakes in the club, according to Sportico. The report added that Vela, along with two unnamed limited partners, acquired a 6% stake. Financial details were not disclosed (more here).

• Youtuber KSI Acquires Stake In English Football Club. Notable YouTuber KSI has bought a minority stake in English Football Club Dagenham & Redbridge. The club is currently in the National League South, the sixth level of the English football league system. He is simultaneously producing a docu-series about the takeover. KSI’s stake is worth about 20%, according to sources knowledgeable of the deal, but specific financial details were not disclosed (more here).

• TWG Global Launches RightsHelper. TWG Global, a diversified holding company led by Mark Walter and Thomas Tull, announced the launch of RightsHelper, a ticketing analytics and operations platform designed to address growing vendor fragmentation and revenue inefficiencies for teams, leagues, and commercial rightsholders across the global sports and live entertainment ecosystem (more here).

This week’s guest on the Vetted Sports podcast is Omer Atesmen.

Omer Atesmen is the CEO of The Snow League.


The Snow League is a new professional league reimagining snowboarding and free skiing.


The league was co-founded by five-time Olympian snowboarder and skateboarder Shaun White.

In this episode, we discuss:

‣ How the idea for the league came about
‣ Lessons learned from working with Shaun White
‣ Strategy around expansion and athlete storytelling

Check out the full episode here: Apple | Spotify | YouTube

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