# Johnson Willing To Sell To Jordan



## croco (Feb 14, 2005)

> Charlotte Bobcats owner Bob Johnson said Wednesday afternoon that he "absolutely, unequivocally" would never move the team out of Charlotte, but he left open the possibility of selling his majority stake in the NBA franchise to Michael Jordan.
> 
> "If Michael picked up the phone and said 'I'm ready to be the Bobcats owner,' I'd be more than happy to talk to him about it," Johnson said. "I couldn't think of a better owner to do it. It's really on his timetable, not on my timetable. If he has an interest in doing it, I'm convinced he could put together the economics to do it."
> 
> ...


Pretty strong words.


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## nutmeged3 (Apr 11, 2005)

Interesting I'm glad he's got a commitment to keep the team here. Keep losing money and that stance might change but hopefully the wins will change that. Brown has already changed the losing mentality this club had


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## Diable (Apr 26, 2005)

It's not like I have any sympathy for the man,but he really got reamed by the nba.I forget what they charged him for the franchise fee,but I think it was 300 million.Then they won't let him have the top pick and they stick him to 75% of the salary cap so that it's impossible for him to immediately field a competitive team...It's just a recipe for failure,especially if you aren't really sharp about drafting and developing players.

Of course what this really means is that he wants MJ to come in and offer him a bailout like he was Barack Obama.Save me Michael...Save me before I screw this franchise up any worse and have to move to Seattle.


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## HKF (Dec 10, 2002)

Diable said:


> It's not like I have any sympathy for the man,but he really got reamed by the nba.I forget what they charged him for the franchise fee,but I think it was 300 million.Then they won't let him have the top pick and they stick him to 75% of the salary cap so that it's impossible for him to immediately field a competitive team...It's just a recipe for failure,especially if you aren't really sharp about drafting and developing players.
> 
> Of course what this really means is that he wants MJ to come in and offer him a bailout like he was Barack Obama.Save me Michael...Save me before I screw this franchise up any worse and have to move to Seattle.


You are right Diable. It was 10 million to each of the 29 teams and 10 million to the league for the full 300 million. Then he had to spend more money to build the team. I also think I called this not too long ago. Jordan will soon be the majority owner (with another major investor - possibly Magic Johnson) within the next two years.


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## Coatesvillain (Jul 17, 2002)

There's no way Jordan will put his own money out there to become the majority owner.


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## Smithian (Apr 3, 2006)

Michael Jordan basically had free equity when he was a Wizards owner. Is MJ willing to pay up?


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## HKF (Dec 10, 2002)

Coatesvillain said:


> There's no way Jordan will put his own money out there to become the majority owner.


Jordan has deep-pocketed financiers, you know this.


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## Diable (Apr 26, 2005)

Jordan's net worth was estimated to exceed 400 million after his divorce was completed(a year or two ago).He already owns about a quarter of the team.To become majority owner he'd probably have to put up about thirty or forty million of his own money and borrow another 70 to 100 million.(that's just my guess on the value of about a third of the team)If he wanted to do it then it wouldn't really be a big deal for him.Honestly he'd be foolish to pay a huge sum for this team though.It simply isn't in great shape as a franchise and it's highly likely that Johnson will want more than it's actually worth.

I sort of wonder what impact his relationship with players who endorse the Jordan brand would have.It could be that other owners wouldn't like having another owner writing big checks to their players as he does to Chris Paul and a couple other guys.


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## HKF (Dec 10, 2002)

The Jordan Brand is owned by Nike, Diable as a subsidiary. Jordan has all of the overhead paid by Nike. I don't think it really matters.


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