I've heard plenty of reasons, and no doubt you've thought of few yourself, as to why Russian billionaires have taken to buying professional sports franchises in western sports leagues, i.e. Roman Abramovich's Chelsea and Mikhail Prokhorov's Newark/Brooklyn Nets.  One of the more interesting reasons I've seen is in this post from the Business Insider, in which Henry Blodgett suggests the purchases are basically protection against a hit from the Kremlin in the event the oligarch loses favor with Putin.  It's a plausible reason given what's being happening in Russia lately and, of course, one we'll never be able to know for sure.  I wouldn't be surprised to see it in the next Daniel Silva novel.