Chapter 635 [Purchase Target, Long-Term Layout]
As for buying the Warriors, Yang Rui also gave up.
In his previous life, Joey Lacob only invested US$450 million to buy the Warriors in 2010. After the Warriors won two championships, the valuation reached US$2.6 billion. Buying the Warriors is a guaranteed profit without losing money. What makes Yang Rui disgusted is also the location. .
Every time people discuss the Warriors, they will naturally mention San Francisco, Los Angeles, Silicon Valley and other famous areas, but few people will talk about Oakland, where the Warriors are home.
But if you are a resident of Oakland, you will know that the above areas are too far away from you, even San Francisco is just across the bridge.
Yang Rui asked his agent John to investigate and found that Oakland also has one of the highest crime rates in the United States. It is notorious for residents of other places, and they talk about it with a stern tone.
The downtown area of Auckland is relatively better, while the suburbs are extremely chaotic. The further away from the city center, the more black and Mexican people are distributed, making it a paradise for Mexican smugglers.
While assaults are rare, burglaries and car thefts are also common. If you dare to leave items such as a GPS or mobile phone where they can be seen in the car, the car window will definitely be smashed the next day.
It is a miracle that the Warriors can rise in this place.
Excluding those two teams, the only candidates left are the Kings and Clippers.
In a few years, the Kings owners, the Maloof brothers, will also sell the team, but the Kings chose Thabeet... God can't save them.
Yang Rui asked: "Tom, what do you think of buying the Clippers?"
The Clippers are in Los Angeles and share the Staples Center with the Lakers. Of course Thomas supports it with all his hands and feet. "Of course it would be best if you can buy it, but will Sterling sell it?"
"Not for the time being, but Sterling is old and no one in the family works for the team. I can buy part of it first, and then wait until he stops playing, and then buy the entire Clippers. The question now is, how to make it happen? He is willing to sell part of it, or make other small shareholders willing to sell their shares."
Yang Rui will take whatever other Clippers shares are sold for. He knows that there will be an acquisition opportunity in the future, and that is Sterling's "racial discrimination scandal". The league will force him to sell the team, otherwise it will be difficult to see the Los Angeles team change its owner. .
In April 2014, the TMZ website exposed an audio recording, which contained a suspected conversation between Sterling and his girlfriend. During the conversation, Sterling accused his girlfriend of posting a photo with Magic Johnson on social media and angrily scolded her, "Don't bring black people to my games!"
As soon as the news came out, it caused huge waves in the NBA, and Sterling became the target of everyone's verbal criticism. Subsequently, the new NBA president Adam Silva announced the penalty decision: fine Sterling $2.5 million, ban him for life, and will make every effort to force him to sell the Clippers.
Sterling said the racial discrimination scandal was a conspiracy and that he was tricked by the woman.
Immediately afterwards, the media broke the news that "Magic" Johnson wanted to buy the Clippers. For a while, conspiracy theories were flying everywhere.
As a direct victim of Sterling's racial discrimination, Johnson entered the Clippers' home court to watch a game in May, surrounded by NBA president Silver, senior official Vandeweghe, and Disney CEO Bob Iger. The whispers are considered to be discussions about a Clippers acquisition.
Finally, former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer purchased the Clippers from Donald Sterling for $2 billion.
The Clippers, which had never made it to the Western Conference Finals, were able to sell for a sky-high price because they were located in Los Angeles. Sterling really didn’t want to sell, so he went to court over this. The price was not shouted out by him, but by several major consortiums who competed to drive up the price. Up.
At that time, media broke the news that Yao Mingdu wanted to form a Chinese consortium to acquire the Clippers.
The commercial potential of the Clippers is obvious. In 2016, Ballmer signed a broadcast contract with Fox Sports for a period of 6 years and US$300 million, which was twice the previous price.
It is worth mentioning that Ballmer is also planning to invest in his own live broadcast network. In the future, Clippers games may be broadcast on the platform under his name, which will make more money, but Yang Rui did not see that day in his previous life.
Facebook now broadcasts NBA games live, and it is easier for Yang Rui than Ballmer to have his own OTT (providing various application services to users through the Internet) streaming network live broadcast system. As long as Yang Rui can lead the team to suppress the Lakers, the Clippers will be a super cash cow in the future.
Yang Rui explained his thoughts, and Thomas also believed that this cake was too big to be missed and worthy of long-term planning. As long as they can acquire the Clippers within five years, they will make a lot of money.
Owning an NBA team to make direct profits is only one aspect. The biggest role is advertising, just like Alexander, the former Rockets owner.
He is often hailed as a typical example of poor NBA bosses, but by choosing Yao Ming, his net worth skyrocketed from the "deputy monitor" of 30 NBA team owners to tied for ninth place.
Alexander said: "You all know that I want to thank Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady, especially after Yao Ming came, he brought me 1.2 billion in wealth. Because developing the Chinese market is my biggest business opportunity. My boss has changed from the original The NBA ranks from last to ninth. My current goal is to increase my assets to be greater than the population of China."
Later, Alexander really did it and became one of the richest team owners in the United States. In 2017, the Rockets were valued at 1.65 billion, and the final transaction price is expected to exceed 3 billion.
Sterling is also an example. If he were not the owner of the Clippers and was simply engaged in real estate business, not many people would be willing to cooperate with him because no one knows him. With the Clippers advertisement, other people are much bolder in commercial cooperation with him. If they can run away, a monk can't run away from the temple.
Thomas smiled and said: "I'll look for someone to set up a project later and study how to make Sterling willing to invite you to coach the Clippers and buy shares. There is a problem. The Clippers have always been a bad team. If you go there, can you lead the team? Overthrow the Lakers?"
"Easy to do." Yang Rui smiled, feeling confident.
There are specialties in the art industry, and buying a team requires professionals to bargain and lead the team to win, and Yang Rui is the best at it.
Now the Clippers have two potential newcomers in Blake Griffin and Eric Gordon. DeAndre Jordan is also considered a potential player for the time being. There is room for improvement on the defensive end, his style of play attracts fans, and his scoring depends entirely on dunks.
The Clippers also have Chris Kaman, a second-rate star inside, who can pull out the pick-and-roll mid-range shot and attack in the low post. As a bargaining chip, he can also be exchanged for a good player.
The rest are just a group of subpar players. The biggest good news is that the Clippers do not have a high-paying long-term contract to sign Baron Davis, and the team lacks a super bad contract.
In Yang Rui's previous life, in order to clean up Davis' bad contract, the Clippers traded with the Cavaliers and packaged an unprotected draft pick in exchange for Mo Williams. Then, the Cavaliers used the 2011 draft pick to take the No. 1 pick and selected Kyrie Irving, and the Clippers suffered a huge loss.
Although the Clippers' role players are not of much use, at least their contracts are not too bad, and they can still be traded if they want.
In addition, the Clippers have salary space, and there are many "big fish" in the 10-year free market. Catching one will work.
As long as Griffin is reimbursed next season, the Clippers will be in trouble, and the pick in the 2010 draft will not be lower. Yang Rui will be able to select another potential newcomer.
The only thing that gives Yang Rui a headache is how to get along with Clippers owner Sterling. This guy has too much negative news, stingy, sexual harassment, racial discrimination and so on. Yang Rui was afraid that his personality was very different and he would have an unhappy life.
Fortunately, he has a strong economic team behind him and someone will provide advice.
He can now relax and wait for the opportunity to join. Next year, coach Dunleavy's contract expires.