The NBA purchased the New Orleans Hornets franchise from founding owner George Shinn and minority owner Gary Chouest this past December to bail those two out of some cash flow issues they were experiencing. Last time I had some cash flow issues, I sold an old refrigerator I had in my garage on Craigslist. As a result of my deal I raked in one hundred dollars, Shinn and Chouset made $300 million.
Since taking ownership of the team, the NBA has operated under the intent of keeping the Hornets on Bourbon street. The acting president, Hugh Weber, has worked out a few sponsorship deals in the short-term, and they’ve sold 9,000 season tickets so far this off-season as well – up from 6,300 last year. In order for the franchise to to work long-term down in the NO, however, they will need a buyer to pony up some of their own serious jack and takeover the team. To that point, David Stern said this week that he’s pretty close to finding some people with the potential doing just that.
This from The Times Picayune on Wednesday:
“We have four or possibly five buyers that engaged us about the purchase of the franchise to remain in Louisiana,” said Stern, who declined to identify them. “We have said that we’re happy to continue conversations, but we need to complete all of the things we’re working on and have a better idea on where the collective bargaining agreement is going to land.”
The commissioner called New Orleans “a basketball town” that has fallen on “some hard times that we’ve tried to help participate in bringing it back from. But we think that there is no better way for the state and New Orleans to let the world know they’re open for business than having a thriving Hornets team.”
Stern said he is confident the Hornets will continue making progress toward securing their long-term future in New Orleans.
“I’m very pleased with where we are, I would be really pleased when we get to where we think we have to get to,” Stern said.
You can certainly count me as a person who hopes the Hornets are able to stay down in New Orleans long-term on a serious note. On a not as serious note, I’m really hoping that the “four or possibly five” potential buyers that Stern is engaged in a dialogue with include NO native Weezy F. Baby, Birdman, Drake, and a couple of the other Cash Money Millionaires. That would be kinda awesome, and if their Hornets were able to beat the Heat on any given night, Wayne wouldn’t have to subject himself to LeBron’s disrespectful habit on non-deuce chucking anymore either. Everybody wins.
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Photo: ESPN 1420 am
