When Wes Edens and Marc Lasry bought the Milwaukee Bucks in May, they said their goal was to stabilize the franchise in Milwaukee. This was thought to kill the rumors that the Bucks were going to be moved to Seattle, giving a rapid Sonics fan base a team back.
However, that might not be the case.
Edens and Lasry bought the team for $550 million, and as part of the agreement, the NBA could buy the team back from them for $575 million if a new stadium wasn't built and ready for use by November 2017.
That seems like a pretty big incentive to get going on building a new arena right away, but the Bucks aren't doing that. Apparently, they haven't selected a location in which the new stadium would be built.
They still have time, but they're going to have to work fast to get that stadium built by the deadline. Yet, as Grantland's Bill Simmons thinks, building a stadium might not be the NBA's best option.
Edens and Lasry bought the Bucks a couple months before Steve Ballmer bought the Clippers for $2 billion, which raised the value of every other NBA franchise exponentially. Right now, the market for the Bucks would be around $1.6 billion, were they to be sold again.
So, if the Bucks don't build a new arena and the NBA buys the team back from Edens and Lasry for $575 million before selling the team, they could make just over $1 billion in the process. That many would then trickle down to the other teams, who would each net $35.3 million.
Not only would this scenario help bring a team back to the crazed market of Seattle, but the league would make such a huge profit that it's in their best financial interest for this to happen.
We'll see whether this happens for not, but it sure does make a lot of sense for the NBA.
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