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"YOU MUST BE exhausted." Without fail, it's the first thing I hear when someone learns I have a baby at home. They're not wrong. I've been ravaged by fatigue. Sleep has been impossible for weeks. Not because of my kid, though; she's out cold for 12 hours a night. You see, in my head, I just missed out on owning an English Premier League football club.

I love soccer. Having my own professional team, even just a minority stake, would really make my day. I'm not a billionaire, which is inconvenient. But one of my closest friends is. And friends share. He still has an umbrella of mine. I've never even asked for it back. And as irrational as this may be, when my buddy joined a consortium vying to buy Chelsea Football Club, I felt as if I would soon own a slice of it. The problem, and what haunts my sleepless nights, is that simply being a billionaire—or having one for a friend—isn't enough.

Two days after Russia invaded Ukraine, oligarch Roman Abramovich promised to step back and hand over "stewardship and care" of Chelsea F.C. to the trustees of its charitable foundation. Less than a week later, the Putin pal, former governor of Chukotka, and owner of the world's third-largest yacht announced he would sell the team out of concern for "the best interest of the club, the fans, the employees, as well as the club's sponsors and partners." Rumors swirled, pundits pontificated, and many of the world's wealthiest found themselves competing to court public favor and seduce the Chelsea faithful.

A group led by hedge fund guru Ken Griffin and the Ricketts family, owners of the Chicago Cubs, withdrew their offer after Joe Ricketts, the family patriarch, was caught sending emails with racist language and vexing conspiracy theories. Three potential ownership groups were left slugging it out. Among their ranks were ex-Disney CEO Bob Iger, tennis great Serena Williams, Facebook cofounder Eduardo Saverin (played by Andrew Garfield in The Social Network, since you were wondering), Formula One god Lewis Hamilton, and a bunch of really rich dudes. And that's what got me in the end: There are too many rich people.

In 2021, Forbes reported that 2,755 billionaires call earth home. That means you could charge a billion dollars for a concert at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium, sell a ticket to everyone who can afford one, and still leave a few hundred billionaires out in the cold. Certain things are finite. Soccer is the world's most popular sport—by far—and the English Premier League is its most popular professional league. There are only 20 Premier League clubs, so anytime one hits the market, it's billionaire catnip. But we're also not talking about any Premier League club. This is Chelsea. The reigning UEFA Champions League and FIFA Club World Cup champion, Chelsea is as sexy as a brand can get. As an asset, if you want to reduce it to such, it's nearly unmatchable.

Chelsea F.C. plays its home games at Stamford Bridge, adjacent to, you guessed it, Chelsea—a royal borough that includes a few of London's wealthiest council wards along with a few of its poorest. Made in Chelsea may be Britain's answer to Rich Kids of Beverly Hills, but a search for "Chelsea Grin" on Urban Dictionary reveals how the notorious Chelsea Headhunters—soccer hooligans of the highest order—have allegedly sliced the corners of opposing fans' mouths and left them looking like Heath Ledger's Joker.

LeBron James has seen quite the return on another Premier League team, Liverpool Football Club. The $6.5 million or so he invested back in 2011 is now estimated to be worth north of $32 million. Slews of other American A-listers are investing closer to home. Matthew McConaughey jumped at the chance to buy into Austin F.C., one of Major League Soccer's newest franchises. He's even the club's self-appointed "minister of culture"—a position whose responsibilities include, in McConaughey's own words, "hanging on to the DNA of who we are and why we love Austin." He can be seen banging a drum on the sidelines of home games.

Natalie Portman, Jennifer Garner, Kevin Durant, James Harden, Ciara, Russell Wilson, Naomi Osaka, James Corden, Drew Carey, Oscar De La Hoya, Marshawn Lynch, Diplo, Christina Aguilera, Alex Ovechkin, Kate Upton, Eva Longoria, and a host of others have joined McConaughey in turning "the beautiful game" into the sexiest celebrity investment. Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney had never met in person when they teamed up to buy Wrexham AFC, a fifth-tier Welsh side turned media darling—and the subject of their upcoming TV series.

Unsurprisingly, soccer and celebrity collide nowhere like they do in Los Angeles. Will Ferrell—a die-hard soccer guy married to a former collegiate player—co-owns MLS's Los Angeles F.C. with Magic Johnson, Mia Hamm and husband Nomar Garciaparra, Tony Robbins, a cofounder of YouTube, and a bunch of others who've made a brick of cash. Ferrell keeps a low profile at home games with his lucky gold pants and T-shirt featuring the club's head of security—a fan favorite at Banc of California stadium.

For many celebrities, soccer presents an opportunity to invest in strong women, like the ones we've seen transcend the world of sports and emerge as bona fide stars and role models. This is America. We like to be number one. And if our men's national team has yet to dominate on the global stage, our women have demonstrated dynastic greatness since the inaugural women's World Cup in 1991.

Portman helped establish the National Women's Soccer League's Angel City F.C. after hearing that Abby Wambach—a generational talent, two-time gold medalist, and World Cup champion—needed a job. Unlike Peyton Manning and Kobe Bryant, her fellow 2016 ESPYs Icon Award recipients, Wambach didn't retire with a bunch of commas in her bank account. Portman joined forces with venture capitalist Kara Nortman to bring professional women's soccer to Los Angeles. Hollywood's newest and rhymiest power couple, Portman and Nortman, recruited the likes of Williams, Jessica Chastain, Aguilera, America Ferrera, Gabrielle Union, Garner, Rachel Zoe, Jay Shetty, and Alexis Ohanian. Wambach also joined the group and pushes for higher salaries, better working conditions, and 401(k) plans to enable these athletes to retire comfortably the way their male counterparts do. Fittingly, the sporting world's greatest gender-equity pioneer, Billie Jean King, sits alongside Wambach in the Angel City F.C. owners' box.

In the final days of Chelsea negotiations, Abramovich, who insists that any money made from the sale will find its way to a charity, demanded an additional $627 million. At that point, my group (in which I had no actual role whatsoever) was removed from consideration, and a consortium led by Todd Boehly, the cofounder, chairman, and CEO of Eldridge Industries, was declared the "preferred" bidder. Boehly withstood a last-minute challenge from Blighty's own Sir Jim Ratclilfe, the chairman and CEO of Ineos chemical company. Ratclilfe entered the race well past the entry deadline with what could have otherwise proved a game-changing bid of $5.3 billion. His statement read, "This is a British bid, for a British club." (It's worth noting that English Premier League giants Arsenal, Manchester United, and Liverpool are all owned by Americans, while Ratclilfe is based in Monaco.) Ratclilfe's curiously timed bid, which felt like telling the table "I got this" after someone else's credit card is tucked in the billfold, whiffed, and Abramovich, who bought Chelsea in 2003 for $233 million, will sell it to Boehly and his partners for $5.33 billion—roughly the GDP of Greenland and Belize combined.

I'm so happy for Boehly, who already owns a piece of the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Los Angeles Lakers while I slum it with zero stake in any professional sports franchise. Not that I quit. Just you wait, I'll befriend myself into an owners' box. Or I'll wander the streets aimlessly, sobbing in the rain. While some billionaire has my umbrella.