Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s Atlético Madrid stake: what the MVP bought and the NBA Europe angle

Oct. 15, 2026 — Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has spent the past week as the newest name on Atlético de Madrid’s shareholder register. The Spanish club announced on Oct. 8 that the Thunder guard had joined its ownership group, and it did not disclose how much he paid or what percentage he holds. The amount is unknown, but the deal is still worth a close look. Of all the NBA players with European soccer stakes, he is the first to buy into a club whose new controlling owner has openly looked at basketball and at the NBA’s planned European league.

“I’m excited to officially join Atlético de Madrid’s ownership group,” Gilgeous-Alexander said in the club’s statement. “This is a club with a long-standing presence at the top of European football, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to be part of its future.” Atlético said his investment “reflects an interest in the club’s long-term vision and international growth.” He had already been photographed in a vintage rojiblanco tracksuit in April.

What he bought into

Atlético is no longer the family-run club it was for most of the past three decades. Apollo Sports Capital, the sports arm of the U.S. investment firm Apollo Global Management, agreed in November 2025 to become majority shareholder and closed the deal on March 12, 2026. Apollo took roughly 55 percent in a transaction that valued the whole club at about €2.5 billion (around $2.9 billion), debt included.

The rest of the cap table is still crowded. Quantum Pacific Group, Idan Ofer’s investment firm, kept its stake of about 25 percent and is the second-largest shareholder. CEO Miguel Ángel Gil Marín and chairman Enrique Cerezo stayed in their jobs and kept shares, and funds managed by Ares Management also stayed in. Gilgeous-Alexander joins as a small minority investor beside all of them. Nothing the club has published suggests he has a board seat or any operating role.

The club comes with real estate as well as a soccer team. When the deal closed, Atlético’s board approved up to €100 million in new equity and strategic capital, part of it for Ciudad del Deporte. That is a sports and entertainment district, costing about €350 million, being built next to the Riyadh Air Metropolitano stadium, and it is due to open in phases. The stadium will host the 2027 Champions League final. The group also owns clubs in Mexico and Canada, and for a player from Hamilton, Ontario, that gives Atlético Ottawa a home-country link.

The NBA Europe angle

The basketball connection is what separates this investment from the others. Madrid is one of the 12 target cities for the permanent franchises in the NBA and FIBA’s proposed European league. NBA deputy commissioner Mark Tatum has said the league has “clear frontrunners in each of our 12 target cities including many existing basketball and football clubs.” Bids for those permanent seats have been put in the $500 million to $1 billion-plus range.

Atlético has had no basketball section for decades. Spanish outlets wrote in the spring that Apollo had studied launching one, but only if the NBA’s European league actually goes ahead. Bloomberg’s April report on the league’s financing talks named Apollo and Ares, both Atlético shareholders, among the investment funds in early discussions with the NBA. None of that adds up to a bid, and Real Madrid’s established basketball club is the obvious favorite for a Madrid seat. Still, the people Gilgeous-Alexander now shares an ownership group with have been part of the conversation about where NBA money goes in Europe.

For an active player, that is about as close to the league’s next big project as he can get. He has a front-row seat at a club that could end up as a partner, a rival bidder or a landlord in a market the NBA wants.

Where he fits among NBA soccer investors

Gilgeous-Alexander joins a long list. LeBron James has owned a piece of Liverpool since 2011 and became a partner in its parent, Fenway Sports Group, in 2021. Kevin Durant invested in Paris Saint-Germain in 2024 through his Boardroom company and the minority investor Arctos Partners, and he also owns part of MLS’s Philadelphia Union. Steve Nash and Steve Kerr are part of the group that owns RCD Mallorca. Jason Kidd came into Everton in 2025 through the Friedkin Group, Russell Westbrook, Larry Nance Jr. and T.J. McConnell invested in Leeds United in 2023, and Giannis Antetokounmpo added a stake in Chelsea’s women’s team in February to his Nashville SC holding.

Most of those were small checks, and Durant’s PSG investment was described as being in the single-digit millions. Gilgeous-Alexander’s was probably the same kind of deal. What sets this one apart is the timing and the target. He is buying in at the peak of his career, as a back-to-back MVP, and into a club whose controlling owner has studied NBA Europe.

He can afford it

Gilgeous-Alexander is in the final season of his rookie-scale max extension and is due about $40.8 million in 2026-27. His four-year supermax extension, signed in July 2025, starts in 2027-28 at 35 percent of that season’s salary cap with 8 percent annual raises. It was projected at about $285 million, or more than $71 million a year on average, and it runs through 2030-31 with a player option in the final season. His salary will roughly rise by half next season, before any endorsement income. A minority stake in a club valued at about $2.9 billion is a modest use of that money and a very public one.

The cost to Oklahoma City is zero. Players’ outside investments in foreign soccer clubs don’t count against the cap or the tax, and the Thunder’s books are the same as they were before Oct. 8. The thing to watch is whether Atlético’s owners move from feasibility studies to an actual bid once the NBA picks its Madrid partner. If they do, the league’s best player would have a financial interest in the outcome.