Before I address, thanks @Harry Chappas , I forgot Ted (and I’m am assuming RP goes).
You are confusing two aspects of ownership. One is who is elected Managing Partner by all ownership interests. JR is the managing partner, elected by the other partners to run the day to day business on their behalf. There very well may have been owners with equal or more shares / percentage of ownership at the time of the purchase. However, Jerry was elected to manage the day to day affairs, and receive separate compensation for his labor, in addition to shared profits enjoyed by all minority owners on a pro-rata share basis.
Theo would likely be an owner with limited capital, but would earn substantial compensation in addition to his passive partnership profit participation. JR used total compensation across both entities to buy out other owners over the past four decades.
The other is the term “profits” or gains. There are three types of gains or losses all owners share while owning a ball club.
Net Profits / Losses owners claim as baseball revenue: These include a substantial portion of revenue, and all expense, including expenses not subject to cash outlays such as depreciation on capital assets such as players, stadiums, etc. This is the information owners may disclose, typically in a manner most advantageous to them (we lose barely make money). It also includes the depreciation losses that they use to reduce their taxes paid, though they are not depleting their cash.
Profits owners do not claim as baseball revenue, but are still real: For example, MLB media, auxiliary revenue such as parking lot income, television revenues (for team owned networks and the MLB network), and other revenue. Owners owned equal share in profits of MLB media at an equal 1/30 share. They are required to pay taxes on realized income. However, for the sake of what they communicate to players and fans, this is revenue they do not “count” when declaring whether they “lost” money.
Another good example is the Cubs (Marquis) or Sox (1/3 NBCSC) counting a contractural payment to the club for broadcast rights as the sole revenue for the ball club, but realizing profits on both the ball club and the television stations they own.
To summarize these two sets of profit, for the sake of what they disclose and pay tax on, owners overstate losses and understate income whenever it suits them (player negotiations, IRS filings, media disclosures).
Forbes does the best they can with information available and projections of what is not available, to provide the best information they can of total profits realized by baseball owners.
Capital Gains: This is the overall net increase or decrease in the value of the club. These gains are tax deferred and not realized until a minority owner sells. This is similar to increases you may experience as an individual for ownership of your home, stocks or mutual funds. Prices go up and down, but you don’t receive cash, or pay tax, until you sell. You can borrow on these assets to an extent, but otherwise you can’t receive cash (unless you rent your house, and one also received interest and dividends from investments) until you sell.
This is an extra component owners do not “share” with players when they talk “revenue sharing”, but yet another example of profits they do realize and benefit on when they sell, and that they can also leverage when borrowing while they own the team.
Hope this helps explain why owners can cry poor and say they lose money, but are in reality totally full of shit in nearly all cases. Even during COVID / no fan seasons, they didn’t earn what they typically do across the board, but they did not lose anywhere close to what they are crying, and in some cases, still may have profited.