Kevin Durant is checking into the beautiful game.
The NBA superstar has bought a small ownership stake in the Philadelphia Union, the Sports Business Journal’s Mark J. Burns reported Thursday, citing a source.
Durant will own between 1 percent and 5 percent of the Major League Soccer club, although it’s nuclear whether the minority stake in the Union was acquired via his personal funds or through those of Thirty Five Ventures, a business he co-founded with partner Rich Kleiman.
The four-year, $164 million contract Durant signed with the Brooklyn Nets last summer is among the richest in NBA history. He previously earned around $190 million in NBA salaries between 2007 and 2019, according to Basketball-Reference.com.
Durant had twice tried to buy a stake in his hometown D.C. United but was unable to do so.
Durant is the latest superstar athlete to buy a stake in an MLS team. He joins the Houston Rockets’ James Harden, who owns part of the Houston Dynamo and related clubs, and the Seattle Seahawks’ Russell Wilson, who owns shares in the Seattle Sounders.
