Sale Confirmed: The Michael Jordan Thread

[JDR720]

2/3rds of the new group being current co-owners doesn't bode very well for any significant change. Especially since both of them are hedge fund guys who may care more about making money than winning.

[JDR720]

that escalated quickly.
wont mean anything if jordan retains basketball ops influence.

That's what I think will happen as of now.

2 of them are already co-owners. They're just buying some of Jordans part to take majority control. Jordan will still be an owner. Maybe the defacto president when Mitch retires unless he just wants to play golf instead.

We get a new ownership & MJ retains influence and control. Which defeats the entire point of wanting MJ to sell the team.

[SWedd523]

According to Woj Daniel Sundheim is leading the group, who has a net worth of almost 3 billion

That makes more sense than a couple of chumps only worth a combined 1.5 mil

[SWedd523]

We get a new ownership & MJ retains influence and control.

Somehow even more worst case than him maintaining status quo lol.

If he sells, he needs to not have any day to day influence beyond marketing, social media, community outreach (which he already doesn't do so... eh)

[-Ian-]

A lot of people here want to see MJ gone only to have the possible succeeding ownership group look absolutely worse than him.

At this point, I'd be fine with MJ sticking around. These hedge fund men don't give me confidence that they can do better in managing this organization. At best, this is a lateral move; at worst, this is going to be a dumpster fire.

[Snidely FC]

The Hornets under Michael Jordan:

*Two playoff appearances in 12 seasons. Lost in the first round both times.
*Worst season in NBA history (7-59) (.106)
*Three players arrested in a single offseason

Just Sell It

[Braggins]

Im not that worried about the team moving. The only way I could see it happening is if the league itself actually really wanted it to happen and I can't imagine thats the case right now. Charlotte doesn't seem like a market you'd want to abandon. I think the league has a vested interest in the Charlotte franchise not continuing to be a joke organization that is deficient at every level, which was only ever going to be possible if MJ sold the team. Obviously there is no guarantee the new owners will be competent, but there was a 0% possibility of competency from the current ownership.

I don't understand the talk about MJ still retaining control. How/why would he be able to keep control of the team if he didn't have a majority ownership stake? No one is going to hire him to run a franchise and he can't just bully the new owners into letting him run the ship when he has no right/claim to. Is the thought that him retaining control would be made a condition of the sale? I also don't find that very plausible since there has been every indication for the last two years that he has no interest in actually being involved with the team beyond occasionally showing up out of nowhere to sabotage something. It also would be insane for a new ownership group to invest a ton of money in an asset on the condition that they were going to let the previous horribly incompetent owner continue to retain control of it and sabotage their investment.

[HornetJail]

aren't the Hornets rooted to Spectrum Center till 2050 or something? we have nothing to worry about

[SWedd523]

aren't the Hornets rooted to Spectrum Center till 2050 or something? we have nothing to worry about

While you're right, money makes the world go round, so I doubt there's nothing out of the question.


That said, I don't see the NBA being keen to move the team. Whether or not it was their intention, they sort of committed to the idea of a team in Charlotte when they decided to re-award a franchise to the city.

[fatlever]

What percentage of the team do we think Jordan will sell? Articles suggest he owns between 80 and 90% of the team. He would need to then sell between 31% and 41% at minimum. Is the plan to take Jordan down to 49%? Or does he only want to own like 1% at this point?

If Jordan retains 49%, while technically he won't own the team, and new owners could obviously do what they want with the front office, I would be surprised if they came in and cleared out all of Jordan's friends and family.

I don't really have a problem with the marketing, sales, and business side of the franchise. I think they've done about as well as they could given what they're working with. Our uniforms, branding, court ate top notch. Our social media has been solid. Hard to promote a terrible product with only 1 marketable player (who can't complete a comprehendandle sentence in public)

It's the basketball operation side of things that will really determine how much power the new owners plan to wield. For example, Jordan's brother is Chief Operating Officer of basketball operations. What experience he has to be a COO is beyond me. It basically feels like an episode of succession with dumbass Roman being handed the COO position of a $80 billion dollar company and cousin Greg as our head of scouting.

Maybe these hedge fund douches have had enough of being the laughing stock and plan to revamp the entire basketball side of operations from Top down. That would be easy to do with Jordan at 1%, but with Jordan at 49%, That's going to get pretty awkward potentially.

As for the least on the arena with the city through 2045. Yes there are significant penalties associated with relocating the franchise. But I don't think they are 100% preventative. Have any articles today or does anyone remember exactly what that penalty looks like to break the lease? For some reason I have it in my brain a number of $250 million but I have no idea where that number came from. Let's just say that was the number. Certainly that is a lot of money, but to you owners that just spent a billion dollars to acquire the team another quarter million dollars to move it to a preferred destination wouldn't be the end of the world. I do think that the other owners and the commissioner would frown pretty heavily on it though. Typically when franchises move it's almost always because the city won't build an arena, which definitely isn't the case here considering we just sunk a ton of money into Renovations for the arena. The two most viable cities Las Vegas and Seattle are most definitely being looked at as expansion possibilities, so I don't think the league would want to go that route. What other more attractive cities are out there recruiting NBA teams with a state-of-the-art Arena ready to go? Are you going to leave Charlotte to go to norfolk? Cincinnati? Pittsburgh St Louis or Kansas city? Those are dying cities, Charlotte is BOOMING. Another team somewhere in california? San diego? Austin? Tampa? Mexico City? Vancouver? Montreal? Raleigh (murders would occur)?

Shame Todd Boehly ( LA Dodgers owner and recent acquirer of Chelsea FC) isnt in the market to buy an NBA team. That dude doesn't f*** around. How about some dirty oil money from middle east? Maybe Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney are ready for a new team? Can't all the NASCAR owners in the area pull their money together and buy the team lol. The old Earnhardt, Denny Hamlin conglomerate. Can we at least get Nelly to sell his pathetic 1% lol? Shame Lebron isnt retired yet. I'm 99.9% certain that LeBron would make a better owner than jordan.

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[Braggins]

I was under the impression that MJ was barely a majority owner for some reason. I was thinking he owned like 51%-60%ish. I hadn't thought of the possibility of him selling a significant chunk and still being at 49%.

[fatlever]

I was under the impression that MJ was barely a majority owner for some reason. I was thinking he owned like 51%-60%ish. I hadn't thought of the possibility of him selling a significant chunk and still being at 49%.

Exactly, Jordan could sell a considerable percentage to give up majority ownership, make a massive profit and still own 40+% of the team.

I don't know what the other owner percentage breakdown is. I think Nelly is still part owner although he probably owns 1% or less. I feel like Felix Sabatis was a minority owner at some point but I don't know what his percentage is or if he's still around.

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[LofJ]

I was under the impression that MJ was barely a majority owner for some reason. I was thinking he owned like 51%-60%ish. I hadn't thought of the possibility of him selling a significant chunk and still being at 49%.

Before he sold some shares a few years ago the figure I saw quoted was 97%. I'm not sure what the percentage is now. If I had to guess I'd say he's still comfortably above 80%.

[JDR720]

MJ owns at least 80+% of the team, if not more.

Jordan sold a piece of the Hornets to Plotkin, a founder of Melvin Capital, and Daniel Sundheim, a founder of DI Capital, in 2019. The two New York-based investors were brought on board, but Jordan still controlled 97% of the Hornets' equity, The Observer reported at the time.

The worrying thing is Plotkin and Sundheim are current co-owners, especially if MJ still has a larger stake of the team, that not much will change.

[fatlever]

I was under the impression that MJ was barely a majority owner for some reason. I was thinking he owned like 51%-60%ish. I hadn't thought of the possibility of him selling a significant chunk and still being at 49%.

Before he sold some shares a few years ago the figure I saw quoted was 97%. I'm not sure what the percentage is now. If I had to guess I'd say he's still comfortably above 80%.

according to articles today
he was at 97%
then sold down to 80%
then rebought to 89.5% (this is the part I'm not 100% sure about)
so he owns somewhere between 80-89.5%

[amcoolio]

He can make so much money just selling his stake outright, like 1.5-2 billion, then use some of that for the Commanders franchise

[SWedd523]

Any reason why he would sell out of a basketball team in his home state for a **** football team in Washington?

[amcoolio]

IDK, but that's the rumor going around the twitterverse

NBA has international appeal, I don't get not seeing what offers are out there

[SWedd523]

I saw the same rumor, I just don't understand it

[JDR720]

More money to be made in the NFL.