Michael Jordan, former NBA champion, and current majority owner of the Charlotte Hornets is selling a pretty significant chunk of his ownership of the team. According to a report by Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer, Jordan will bring two investors into the ownership fold of the Hornets but does not plan on giving up majority ownership of the team.
Jordan is bringing in Gabe Plotkin, a founder of Melvin Captal, and Daniel Sundheim, a founder of DI Capital. Both prospective owners must be approved by the NBA, but that is already in process and the sale is expected to close in the next couple of weeks, a league source confirmed.
Jordan controls about a 97 percent stake in the Hornets. This agreement has no provision for him to give up majority control of the team or its operation. A source familiar with Jordan’s thinking said he plans to own and run the Hornets “a good, long time.”
Bonnell said later on Saturday that the Hornets confirmed his report. This decision by Jordan should be fairly harmless in terms of how he’s perceived in the team. He’s still the majority owner. He still has final say. While the new owners may have some say in what happens with the team, at the end of the day this is still Jordan’s team. More money being invested into the team should be a positive, though, and Jordan theoretically should be able to compete better with many of the other small NBA franchises that have performed better than his.
Jordan has owned at least a portion of the Charlotte since 2006 and became majority owner of the team in 2010. During that timeframe he’s had some successes, but a lot of failures. Much of those failures were in relation to the fact that, compared to the rest of the NBA owners, Jordan is not able to put quite as much money into the team. With Jordan looking to sell a portion of his stake in the team this could lead to more money going into the team.
