The Minnesota Timberwolves and Lynx are in the middle of an ownership controversy. The long and the short of it is that longtime owner Glen Taylor agreed to a deal to sell the team to Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez over the span of several years, but when it came time to get the portion of the deal that would let them take majority control of the team over the line, Taylor kept control of the team after he claimed that Lore and Rodriguez did not hold up their end of the bargain, which the pair strenuously denied.
All of this happened amid the Timberwolves going on a run to the Western Conference Finals, and now, Lore and Rodriguez’s group owns around 40 percent of the team. And according to Jon Krawczynski and Shams Charania of The Athletic, they’re attempting to bring some more financial might to their ownership group, as businessman and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg is the latest individual with big money to join.
While Bloomberg is a big name and a considerable financial partner, he is in for only a portion of that $300 million. The rest comes from the existing group Lore and Rodriguez have assembled, which includes themselves, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and others. Lore and Rodriguez will continue to lead their group and serve as the final decision-makers should they get control of the team, the same sources said. If they do win in arbitration, they would still have to be approved by the NBA’s board of governors before officially joining the league’s majority ownership ranks.
That $300 million would allow the ownership group to buy out Taylor immediately. But for now, the two sides are headed to arbitration to see if Lore and A-Rod’s group did everything by the book in their efforts to take majority control of the team earlier this year.
