Guardian newspaper reports<\/a> that billionaire Foley (81) is set to take control of top-tier English rugby club Exeter Chiefs in a multimillion-pound deal that\u2019s been struck with Exeter\u2019s chairman, Tony Rowe.<\/p>\nRowe (77) told the Guardian: \u201cI\u2019ve put in an extraordinary amount of money to keep the club alive, but it\u2019s not fair on my family.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe time has come where we\u2019ve got to be very sensible about our futures.\u201d<\/p>\n
The deal will go through if approved by more than 75% of the club\u2019s membership of about 700, at their annual general meeting on May 8 (NZT).<\/p>\n
The Black Knight Football Club owns more than 80% of A-League club Auckland FC, and its investors include Oscar-winning actor Michael B. Jordan.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the NBA have announced a plan to expand by adding a new franchise in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really exciting to have the NBA designate Las Vegas as a future home for an NBA expansion franchise,\u201d Foley told 8 News Now.<\/p>\n
\u201cLas Vegas deserves it; local residents deserve it, I believe it\u2019s really exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Foley, whose net worth is estimated at more than US$2 billion (NZ$3.5 billion) by Forbes Magazine, said he and potential investor partners were ready.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have people who are interested in investing. But we haven\u2019t really followed through with what the league is yet. Soon, it\u2019s going to be time to follow up with the NBA and the commissioner and let them know of our expressions of interest because we are interested..<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a long process, we understand that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Foley says the Golden Knights\u2019 home game venue, the T-Mobile Arena, would benefit from a US$300 million upgrade.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving an NBA team here and having them play at T-Mobile is just a great solution for the town.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat gives us plenty of time with ourselves, along with MGM and AEG, the other owners of the arena, to make the improvements necessary to make it NBA-ready.\u201d<\/p>\n
Current football portfolio<\/p>\n
The BKFC\u2019s football interests include:<\/p>\n
England:\u00a0100% ownership of English Premier League club Bournemouth.
\nNew Zealand:\u00a082% share in A-League club Auckland FC.
\nFrance:\u00a0100% stake in French Ligue 1 club FC Lorient.
\nPortugal:\u00a0Majority stake in Primeira Liga club Moreirense Futebol.
\nCroatia:\u00a0A reported 25% stake in top-tier Croatian club HNK Rijeka.
\nUnited States:\u00a0A strategic partnership with Major League Soccer\u2019s Orlando City.
\nJapan:\u00a0A strategic partnership with J1 League club Kyoto Sanga.<\/p>\n
BKFC previously held a 25% stake in Scottish Premiership club Hibernian but sold the holding back to the club\u2019s majority shareholder, the Gordon family, in late 2025.<\/p>\n
This story was first published on April 20, 2026.<\/p>\n
More football stories<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Auckland FC\u2019s majority owner, Bill Foley, is ready to add a professional rugby club to his growing portfolio…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":617968,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[32406,64,67092,63,726,299650,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-617967","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-a-league","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-auckland-fc","11":"tag-australia","12":"tag-basketball","13":"tag-bill-foley","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=617967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/617968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=617967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=617967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=617967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}