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December 26, 2009
Basketball's Billionaires - Owning an NBA team during a recession is no slam-dunk.
Forbes
By Steven Bertoni
Russian industrialist Mikhail Prokhorov is trying to buy his way into the brotherhood of basketball billionaires. In September his company, Onexim Sports, announced it would pay $200 million for a majority stake in the NBA’s New Jersey Nets.
He might want to think twice before writing the check.
Over the last year, basketball’s 10 billionaire owners saw the value of their teams shed a collective $110 million as the recession and job losses punished ticket sales. Team values for the entire NBA fell 3% to an average of $363 million--the first drop in the 11 years that Forbes has calculated team valuations. (See: The Business of Basketball).
Despite the drop in value, NBA players are raking in the cash. Player costs were $2.3 billion during the 2008-09 season--up $100 million from the last year.
Prokhorov, the sports-crazy metals billionaire with a net worth of $9.5 billion as of March 2009, will get an 80% stake in the middling Nets, plus 45% ownership of team’s proposed new Brooklyn home, the Barclays Center.
The NBA could rule on the deal in early 2010. Current Nets owner, Bruce Ratner, bought the team for $300 million in 2004.
Posted by steve at December 26, 2009 7:07 AM