For now, it’s a WNBA team. But down the road, Detroit Lions quarterback Jared Goff could set his sights on something even bigger.
Goff, along with wife Christen, is one of several high-profile investors part of a proposed ownership group trying to bring a WNBA team back to Detroit. Pistons owner Tom Gores, Lions owner Sheila Hamp and former NBA stars Grant Hill and Chris Webber also are part of the group.
If he’s successful, Goff will join a growing list of current NFL stars involved in the ownership side of sports.
Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes joined the Kansas City Royals ownership group five years ago and has a portfolio that also includes stakes in the city’s MLS and NWSL soccer teams and a professional pickleball franchise. He’s also reportedly part of a Kansas City bid for a WNBA team.
New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers bought into the Milwaukee Bucks when he played down the road for the Green Bay Packers.
Cleveland Browns defensive end Myles Garrett holds a minority share of the Cleveland Cavaliers.
And Mahomes’ Chiefs teammate, Travis Kelce, is one of several athlete investors in a Formula One race team.
I asked Goff in October if he was interested in owning an NFL team one day. Active NFL players are not allowed to own equity in a franchise.
“No. Not right now,” Goff said. “Maybe 20 years from now, 30 years from but not right now. I don’t have enough money to do that.”
Goff, who just finished his ninth NFL season — and is on his third big-money contract — has made about $241 million in his career, according to OverTheCap.com.
While that’s unfathomable money to most, the average NFL franchise is worth $5.7 billion — or more than 20 times Goff’s career earnings, according to Forbes.
Several NFL players have bought stakes in a franchise or owned a team outright during their post-playing careers.
Warrick Dunn invested in the Atlanta Falcons a year after he retired. Seven-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady bought into the Las Vegas Raiders this year. And Jerry Richardson, an NFL player in 1959-60, made enough money off his investments in restaurant and food businesses to buy the expansion Carolina Panthers in 1993.
Goff, 30, told me this fall he thinks about his post-playing career “quite a bit,” but doesn’t have a clear vision yet on what his future will hold other than it likely will involve football somehow.
“Like whenever I’m done however many years from now that is, am I burnt out or do I want more?” he said. “I don’t know. I always have said I’d love to help a friend who’s a coach, who’s a head coach. ‘Hey, where can I help?’ And I’m not saying it’s coaching quarterbacks or coaching anything, but just like, ‘Can I help you with anything?””
If that’s the path Goff takes, it likely would keep him in the NFL.
“Oh yeah,” he said. “If I’m going to coach my kid in high school, sure, that’d be fun. But yeah, if I ever have a guy that I’m close with that’s a head coach somewhere and I could be of assistance in anyway, yeah, I’m sure that’d be fun. It might be a remote job, but it depends on where it’s at.”
And depending on what happens with his bid to bring a WNBA team to Detroit, Goff might get the jones to own a piece of more sports teams in the future.
“I don’t think I have enough time right now to even consider what (being part of an NFL ownership group) would look like,” Goff said in October. “But maybe one day.”
