According to a statement issued last week by the NBA, legendary basketball star Michael Jordan has agreed to sell his majority ownership of the Charlotte Hornets to a group led by Hornets minority owner Gabe Plotkin and Atlanta Hawks minority owner Rick Schnall.
In a report by ESPN, Jordan is offering his controlling ownership of the Hornets at a price of around $3 billion.
Jordan, an NBA Hall of Famer and 14-time All-Star, is recognized as one of the greatest basketball players. As one of the world's wealthiest athletes, he has also been on the list. Jordan held the title of highest-paid athlete of all time in 2017, 14 years after he retired from the NBA, according to Forbes.
According to Forbes, Jordan now has a net worth of $2 billion and makes $1.8 billion annually via business deals with companies like Nike, Hanes, and Gatorade.
Jordan will continue to own a small portion of the team as part of the agreement. When the contract is completed, it is unknown how much money Jordan will make overall. According to Axios, the NBA will no longer have any majority Black owners as a result of Jordan relinquishing his ownership.
Once the deal is approved and completed, the Hornets will have two minority governors: Plotkin, who now serves as the team's governor, and Schnall, who formerly served as the Atlanta Hawks' governor.
The Hornets said that J. Cole, a rapper, and Eric Church, a country music icon, are also a part of the new ownership group in addition to Plotkin and Schnall.
Although Jordan, who was born and raised in North Carolina and attended the University of North Carolina, was thought to be the best person to take the Hornets franchise to the next level, they had little success under his leadership as majority owner.
Charlotte only made the playoffs twice in Jordan's 13 seasons as coach, losing in the opening round in 2014 and 2016, respectively.
The Hornets haven't been in the playoffs since 2016, and their lone successful campaign during that time was 2021–22, when they finished 43–39, but they were eliminated from the postseason play-in round.
In addition, a lot of commentators have criticized Jordan for his unsuccessful tenure as the Hornets' owner. In any case, a recent update hints that this harsh criticism might not be that relevant. It rather implies that one of Jordan's infamous behaviors is what finally cost him the Hornets.
Michael Jordan has a history of excessive gambling, as we all know, and has frequently found himself in bad water. There are now rumors that MJ was forced to surrender his primary ownership of the North Carolina-based franchise due to his strange gaming behavior.
Michael Jordan and other hedge fund investors were compelled to make high-interest monthly debt payments since their short-selling strategy resulted in a significant loss.
Jordan now has to choose between continuing to pay down his obligations or paying off a sizable portion of them. Frank Micheal's tweets also claim that Jordan sold the Hornets to raise this enormous sum. Strangely enough, Jordan sold the team to a group headed by Gabe Plotkin and Rick Schnall of Melvin Capital. But not everyone appears to have accepted Frank Michael Smith's account of the selling of Jordan's Hornets.
Through the upcoming draft and the start of free agency on July 1, when the Hornets intend to hand management over to Plotkin and Schnall, Jordan will continue to be in charge of basketball operations.