After buying a controlling stake in 2010 for approximately $175 million, Michael Jordan has sold his majority ownership of the Charlotte Hornets basketball team. Here’s a brief rundown of what happened and how one of the NBA’s best all-time players continues to win in the world of business.
Michael Jordan is finalizing a sale of the Charlotte Hornets ending his 13-year run as majority owner, per @wojespn pic.twitter.com/iioX61aorW
— NBA TV (@NBATV) June 16, 2023
More Than a Points Scorer
Michael Jordan is more than just one of the NBA’s best points scorers, which is already a ridiculously high bar to clear. He’s a businessman who made $100 million with the NBA and grew that to over $2 billion off the court.
His entrepreneurial adventures range from NBA memorabilia and the Air Jordan shoes (obviously) to restaurants and gambling data analytics. Second only to his shoe branding, Jordan’s fans know that gambling was a considerable off-court pastime of his. He was an influential celebrity in the 1990s pre-internet scene, for basketball and blackjack. Now those stories don’t get much attention when online casino best offers are so readily available, like bonuses or beginner’s rooms where players can learn at their own pace. Those are things Jordan, or anyone gambling back then, didn’t have decades ago.
Besides, Jordan prefers to make headlines over his business decisions nowadays, which brings us to the latest news about him and the Charlotte Hornets.
Jordan’s History with The Charlotte Hornets
The Hornets were an expansion team in 1988, into the NBA’s Eastern Conference. In 2002, they moved to New Orleans, so the NBA granted Charlotte another expansion franchise, known as the Bobcats, in 2004. In 2014, they were re-branded as the Hornets, though to this day they have no division, conference, or championship titles to speak of.
Jordan bought a minority ownership in 2006, upgrading his stake in 2010 to become the team’s principal owner, chairman, and head of operations. This move cost him around $175 million (£135 million) – plus another $100 million in investment to maintain the team over the next few years.
After selling a portion of his stake for profit in 2019, some pundits thought that Jordan may be readying himself to cash out of his investment into the team. After all, at that time he had multiplied his initial investment by more than seven times already.
Jordan Still to Remain Minority Owner
That 2019 sale was to two Hornets co-owners, businessmen and hedge fund managers Gabe Plotkin and Daniel Sundheim. Plotkin and associate Rick Schnall are benefiting from this new deal, as they lead a group of like-minded investors that also includes country singer Eric Church and rapper J. Cole. As for the details of this deal – they aren’t out yet, but the Hornets have an estimated value of $3 billion (£2 billion). With a valuation like that, Jordan’s net worth is set for a massive increase, the largest of his career, rivaled only by the income he receives off his Air Jordans royalties.
In fact, criticism is already emerging for Jordan, the team and just how much this experiment has paid off for the NBA all-timer.
Jordan will keep minority ownership, though how much stake he has in the team isn’t known anymore. While the Hornets have turned around, they aren’t the star-studded franchise that some may expect from reading headlines.