Michael Jordan selling majority ownership stake in Charlotte Hornets

June 16, 2023 -CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Michael Jordan is finalizing a deal to sell the majority share of the Charlotte Hornets, the franchise announced Friday, leaving the 30-team NBA without any Black majority ownership.

Jordan is selling to a group led by Gabe Plotkin and Rick Schnall, the Hornets said. Plotkin has been a minority stakeholder in the Hornets since 2019. Schnall has been a minority owner of the Atlanta Hawks since 2015 and is in the process of selling his investment in that team.

It’s not clear how long the process of selling will take to be finalized by the NBA’s Board of Governors. Jordan plans to keep a minority stake in the Hornets, the team he bought in 2010 for about $275 million.

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Jordan’s decision to sell ends his unsuccessful 13-year run overseeing the organization.

“In the same way that it’s wonderful that one of our greatest, Michael Jordan, could become the principal governor of a team, he has the absolute right to sell at the same time,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said earlier this month at the NBA Finals. “Values have gone up a lot since he bought that team, so that is his decision.”

In that same news conference at the finals, Silver said the Board of Governors are focused on diversity in ownership groups.

“I would love to have better representation in terms of principal governors,” Silver said. “It’s a marketplace. It’s something that if we were expanding that the league would be in a position to focus directly on that, but in individual team transactions, the market takes us where we are.”