NBA Has Right To Buy Back Bucks If No Arena Deal In Place By 2017

[jonathanlambert33]

If a deal to build a new arena is not in place by November 2017, the NBA has the right to buy back the Milwaukee Bucks from incoming owners Wesley Edens and Mark Lasry.

Sources told ESPN.com that the sale agreement announced last week to transfer the Bucks from longtime owner Herb Kohl to Edens and Lasry for a purchase price of $550 million includes a provision that allows the league to buy back the team for $575 million.

This provision ensures that the NBA would control the fate of the franchise from that point as opposed to Edens and Lasry.

Edens and Lasry agreed last week to pay a league-record $550 million to Kohl for the Bucks and promised to contribute an additional $100 million toward a new arena.

Via Brian Windhorst, Marc Stein/ESPN

 

[elcheato]

The NBA would love to move them.
 
Anyway, why would two hedge fund billionaires from New York want to buy the Bucks?

 

[Teagz]

I think everyone outside of Bucks fans wants them to move.
 
 
They're the most irrelevant team in the league.

 

[elcheato]

They didn't do horrible local ratings wise when they were decent, but they're a limited market. Not the most limited tho.

 

[jonathanlambert33]

Atlanta is the team I look at. That team has gone to the playoffs for what, five consecutive years?

In that time they were 26th, 23rd, 24th, 20th, 19th. As you can see, their attendance has gotten worse every season.

 

[elcheato]

"Under the terms of the new bond agreement, the Hawks cannot leave Philips Arena for at least seven years even if they pay off the bonds in their entirety. If the Hawks do leave, there's a $75 million "early termination penalty" that the Spirit or the new owners that want a team elsewhere would be socked with. [...]
 
[The team] could theoretically pay off the remaining $123.5 million in bonds off tomorrow and the Hawks could leave, but they cannot leave until the 2018-19 season at earliest without also forking over another $75 million in addition to the $123.5 million or so left remaining on the bonds."
 
Even that is an incomplete pricetag: the NBA has a relocation fee that is decided by the other 29 owners. The last time a team relocated, in 2008, the Oklahoma City Thunder had to fork over $30 million. The L.A. Lakers and Clippers threatened to push for a painful relocation fee when the Maloof family attempted to move the Sacramento Kings to Anaheim last season. The costs of relocation could easily exceed the value of the franchise.

 

[Teagz]

None of the Atlanta teams have great attendance.


Local sports just isn't a great draw there.