Then, someplace on the highway in Argentina, he settled on a sporting achievement that truly excited him: Ratcliffe needed to see somebody run a marathon in below 2 hours. So he employed among the finest scientists in sports activities and one of the best marathoner on the planet to make it occur. And in 2019, on a closed course in Vienna, Eliud Kipchoge ran 26.2 miles in 1 hour and 59 minutes.

This, Ratcliffe realized, was how he needed to spend his time. Being Britain’s richest man wasn’t sufficient, he was additionally within the course of of constructing himself one of many world’s wealthiest, most influential armchair sports activities followers.

Over the subsequent 4 years, Ratcliffe’s empire would increase from the Ineos petrochemical agency to incorporate the skilled biking outfit previously often called Team Sky, soccer golf equipment in France and Switzerland, a stake within the Mercedes Formula One staff, and this week, a 25% share within the English soccer behemoth, Manchester United for round $1.5 billion.

Yet essentially the most outstanding factor about Ratcliffe’s sporting enterprises is that he seems to be rising them not for revenue however purely for his personal amusement. Some sports activities followers purchase streaming packages and season tickets to serve their leisure wants. The 71-year-old Ratcliffe, who splits his time between the U.Ok. and Monaco, merely went out and purchased the groups he preferred. And with a fortune broadly estimated to exceed $30 billion, he might afford it.

“There’s no clear strategic course that’s led to the alternatives which were made,” Fran Millar, the former CEO of Ineos Sports, told The Wall Street Journal in 2019. “Jim’s a very passionate guy…He’s at a stage in his life where I think he’s making decisions based on what’s a fun, interesting, cool thing to do.”

A spokesperson for Mr. Ratcliffe didn’t reply to a request for remark.

The irony is that his pet tasks now play out in entrance of tens of millions of followers, whereas the enterprise that put him able to fund them is basically unfamiliar to most of the people. The Ineos Group, which Ratfcliffe based in 1998, may be the Manchester United of world chemical corporations, however it may possibly’t fairly examine to the precise Manchester United for broad recognition. As individuals near Ratcliffe used to inform him: Ineos was the largest firm that nobody had ever heard of.

That tends to swimsuit Ratcliffe simply fantastic. The son of a woodworker from the Manchester space, he earned a level in chemical engineering, reduce his enamel at main oil corporations, and labored a stint in personal fairness earlier than launching into his personal chemical substances enterprise within the Nineties.

On the events that Ineos did make headlines, it was usually for the mistaken causes. The firm has run afoul of environmental teams within the U. Ok.—and infrequently butted heads with the British authorities—for its work within the importing and extraction of shale gasoline derived from fracking. In 2013, Ratcliffe’s conflict with placing staff at a petrochemical plant in Scotland led to the plant’s closure, the lack of 800 Ineos jobs. Ratcliffe’s perceived intransigence earned him the nickname of a Bond villain: Dr. No.

In the meantime, Ratcliffe was utilizing his astronomical wealth to fund tasks that included the Brexit marketing campaign, a line of 4×4 autos impressed by Land Rovers, and his private Bond-style adventures. There had been expeditions to the North and South Pole. There was the motorcycle jaunt by the Andes. There was his first superyacht, the Hampshire, which he then upgraded in 2011 to the 257-foot Hampshire II.

But as he reached his mid-60s, Ratcliffe was able to domesticate an much more costly behavior: shopping for into skilled sports activities. He started with a nine-figure funding in Great Britain’s America’s Cup crusing staff. A eager bike owner, he then took over the dominant Tour de France staff of the 2010s and instantly promised it the most important funds within the sport. That was across the identical time that he reportedly spent greater than $20 million on the 2-hour marathon venture.

“Ineos by no means needs to be the dumb cash on the town,” Ratcliffe told the Times of London in 2019. “Never, never.”

As any billionaire who has dabbled within the possession {of professional} groups will inform you, dumb cash and sports activities have a protracted historical past collectively—significantly in relation to soccer. Teams are overpriced. European leagues deliver the specter of relegation. And gamers aren’t traded between groups the way in which they’re within the U.S. They’re purchased and offered at enormous expense with few alternatives to recoup any of these prices down the highway.

That’s why Ratcliffe’s first soccer purchases weren’t in his native England in any respect. Despite rising up as a Manchester United fan and as soon as proudly owning season tickets at Chelsea, he started by buying the second-tier Swiss membership FC Lausanne-Sport in 2017 for €7 million. Then, two years later, he picked up the first-division OGC Nice on the French Riviera for €110 million.

Ratcliffe’s funding in United is significantly pricier. Then once more, few skilled sports activities outfits on the planet can boast Man United’s business clout. The membership’s larger downside is that below the possession of the American Glazer household, it hasn’t gained a Premier League title since 2013.

United supporters had been clamoring for recent funding. But Ratcliffe’s arrival hardly ensures success. In reality, it nearly suggests the alternative.

For all of his lavish spending throughout the sports activities universe, his biking staff hasn’t gained the Tour de France since changing into Team Ineos. Mercedes hasn’t claimed an F1 drivers’ championship since Ineos purchased in. And regardless of Ratcliffe’s finest efforts, one of many longest shedding streaks in sports activities nonetheless stays intact: no British boat has ever gained the America’s Cup.

Write to Joshua Robinson at Joshua.Robinson@wsj.com