How Much Could Apple Buy With Its Cash?

When Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) reported its latest quarterly earnings, the newest numbers revealed the world’s largest public company just keeps getting bigger. Among a long list of staggering Apple statistics is the $193.5 billion in cash siting on Apple’s balance sheet.

It’s unclear what (if anything) Apple plans to do with this cash in the near future, but here is a fun list of things that Apple could do if it so desired.

1. Buy Every Major American Sports League

If Apple decided to get into the professional sports business, the bill for buying the “Big 4” American leagues would look something like this:

NFL: $45 billion
MLB: $36 billion
NBA: $33 billion
NHL: $15 billion
Grand total: $129 billion

Apple could easily handle that bill in cash and still get $64.5 billion in change.

2. Buy The American Auto Industry

There’s been a lot of talk lately about Apple working on its own electric car. If the company ever gets tired of putting forth so much effort, it could easily get into the electric car business by simply buying Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA), valued at only $29 billion.

But what about the American auto industry competition? No worries, Apple could buy them, too!

Tesla: $29 billion
Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F): $63 billion
General Motors Company (NYSE: GM): $58 billion
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV (NYSE: FCAU): $21 billion
Grand total: $171 billion ($22.5 billion in change)

Related Link: Apple Earnings Live Blog: Q2 Conference Call

3. Buy The Airline Industry

If Apple decided it would rather pursue air transportation instead of road transportation, it would have no problem buying up the airline industry:

Delta Airlines Inc (NYSE: DAL): $38 billion
Southwest Airlines Co (NYSE: LUV): $28 billion
United Continental Holdings Inc (NYSE: UAL): $24 billion
Ryanair Holdings Plc (NASDAQ: RYAAY): $18 billion
Alaska Air Group, Inc. (NYSE: ALK): $9 billion
JetBlue Airways Corporation (NASDAQ: JBLU): $6 billion
Spirit Airlines Inc (NASDAQ: SAVE): $6 billion
Copa Holdings SA (NYSE: CPA): $5 billion
Allegiant Travel Co (NASDAQ: ALGT): $3 billion
Hawaiian Holdings Inc (NASDAQ: HA): $1 billion
Total: $138 billion ($55.5 billion in change)

4. Take On Exxon

Maybe Apple will decide to take on its closest market cap rival:  Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE: XOM). While Apple doesn’t have enough cash to buy Exxon, it has enough cash to buy about 3.4 billion barrels of oil. Apple could also afford to easily buy one or more Exxon rivals BP (NYSE: BP) ($130 billion), TOTAL SA (NYSE: TOT) ($127 billion) ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) ($83 billion) or Anadarko Petroleum Corporation (NYSE: APC) ($48 billion).

5. Go Stock Picking

Finally, Apple could decide it simply wants to buy up a basket of hot internet services and tech stocks. With the cash on its balance sheet, it could afford to buy the following basket of 10 companies:

Salesforce.com Inc (NYSE: CRM): $44 billion
Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO): $42 billion
Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX): $34 billion
Twitter Inc (NYSE: TWTR): $34 billion
Expedia Inc (NASDAQ: EXPE): $13 billion
GoPro Inc (NASDAQ: GPRO): $6 billion
Groupon Inc (NASDAQ: GRPN): $5 billion
Pandora Media Inc (NYSE: P): $4 billion
Yelp Inc (NYSE: YELP): $4 billion
Zynga Inc (NASDAQ: ZNGA): $2 billion
Total: $188 billion ($5.5 billion in change)