Chaos in the public markets over the past year has taken a bite out of Miriam Adelson’s fortune, dropping her net worth 3%. But the 79-year-old widow of former Las Vegas Sands CEO Sheldon Adelson can always count on her sports team.

The Dallas Mavericks—the NBA franchise Miriam Adelson bought for $3.5 billion in 2023—are now worth $4.7 billion, according to Forbes estimates. And even in a down year for her Sands stock, Adelson is in no danger of relinquishing her crown as the richest female team owner in sports, with her estimated net worth of $29.4 billion heading up a list of 11 women collectively worth $85 billion.

In fact, Adelson is worth more than the next three women in the ranking combined: Brooklyn Nets and New York Liberty co-owner Clara Wu Tsai, who shares an $11.4 billion fortune with her husband, Alibaba cofounder Joe Tsai; Cleveland Browns and Columbus Crew co-owner Dee Haslam, worth $8.5 billion with her husband, former Pilot Flying J CEO Jimmy Haslam; and New Orleans Saints and Pelicans owner Gayle Benson, worth $7.1 billion.

Among the more than 3,000 billionaires on Forbes’ real-time billionaire ranking, roughly 400 are women. But only 11 are the control owner of a franchise in a major professional sports league. (Minority owners were excluded from this ranking, as were billionaires who are part of a team’s ownership group but don’t actually lead the club, such as New York Yankees co-owners Jennifer Steinbrenner Swindal and Jessica Steinbrenner.)

That small pool is growing, however, as increased interest in women’s sports fuels a boom in popularity, sponsor interest and, ultimately, team values, enticing a new class of owner. Health care technology billionaire Michele Kang, No. 11 in the richest female owner ranking at $1.2 billion, says she knew nothing about soccer in 2020 when she first joined the cap........

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