🧔 San Jose Sharks — Key Facts
| Owner | Hasso Plattner |
| Ownership Since | 2002 (as part of Sharks Sports & Entertainment) |
| League | NHL (National Hockey League) |
| Founded | 1991, San Jose, California |
| Home Arena | SAP Center, San Jose, California |
| Hasso Plattner | Co-founder of SAP SE (German enterprise software giant) |
| Plattner Net Worth | ~$13–15 billion |
The San Jose Sharks are owned by Hasso Plattner, German billionaire and co-founder of SAP SE — one of the world’s largest enterprise software companies. Plattner acquired the Sharks in 2002 as part of a group that purchased Sharks Sports & Entertainment, and the franchise’s home arena is named SAP Center in connection with his company.
Who Is the Owner of the San Jose Sharks?
The San Jose Sharks are owned by Hasso Plattner through Sharks Sports & Entertainment. Plattner is a German businessman born in 1944 in Berlin who co-founded SAP (Systems, Applications, and Products in Data Processing) in 1972 with Dietmar Hopp and others. SAP became one of the world’s preeminent enterprise resource planning (ERP) and business software companies, making its founders extraordinarily wealthy. Plattner served as SAP’s CEO and later as Chairman of the Supervisory Board. He purchased the Sharks in 2002, bringing tech wealth into Bay Area hockey ownership — a natural fit given San Jose’s position in Silicon Valley.
San Jose Sharks History
The Sharks are one of the NHL’s newer franchises, established in 1991 when the league granted an expansion team to San Jose. The franchise spent its early years establishing hockey in a warm-weather market — a challenge common to Sun Belt expansion teams. The Sharks never won the Stanley Cup despite reaching the Stanley Cup Finals once, in 2016 (losing to the Pittsburgh Penguins in 6 games). The team’s best era came in the 2000s-2010s with stars like Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau (all-time games played leader), and Evgeni Nabokov in goal. More recently the franchise has entered a rebuild phase.
SAP Center and the Bay Area Tech Connection
The SAP Center in San Jose — known colloquially as “The Shark Tank” among fans — is one of the NHL’s most iconic home arenas. Its naming rights with SAP represent one of the most organic tech-sports connections in professional sports: the arena is named after the company whose founder owns the team. The Bay Area’s hockey fanbase — heavily populated by tech professionals from Silicon Valley — has created a passionate if unconventional hockey market. SAP’s significant $169 million naming rights deal for the arena (signed 2013) reflected the convergence of tech money and sports entertainment in one of America’s most prosperous metro areas.