BY NATE SANTOS
There’s a lot of basketball talk in H-Town this offseason, and not all of it pertains to the players who’ll be suiting up for the Houston Rockets come fall. With ownership of the team newly up for grabs, Bloomberg is reporting that Beyoncé is interested in purchasing an ownership stake in the pro basketball club.
The 35-year-old music superstar and Houston native is said to be throwing her hat in the ring and placing an ownership bid for the Rockets. Should Beyoncé acquire a part of the franchise, this wouldn’t be the first time that The Carters owned stake in an NBA team. In 2004, JAY Z was part of an ownership group who acquired the then New Jersey Nets and relocated the team to Brooklyn. Hov would later relinquish his ownership stake in the Brooklyn Nets in 2013 in order to not infringe upon the operations of Roc Nation Sports, a company which represents athletes in various pro sports.
Rockets owner Les Alexander surprised many when he publicly announced that he would put the team up for sale two weeks ago. Alexander bought the team for $85 million back in 1993. At its current evaluation (which Forbes estimates is $1.65 Billion), the team could fetch an asking price north of $2 Billion. As for Alexander’s motives for selling, they appear to be largely financial. In his announcement, the former bond trader stated that he was putting the team up for sale due to a rise in franchise values across sports.
The Rockets’ pricey evaluation is due in part to the star power of former Houston Rocket Yao Ming, who’s tenure with the team made them hugely popular in his native China. With the two-time NBA champions on the auction block, potential buys are honing in from around the globe. Beyoncé isn’t the only notable name looking to buy the team. NBA Hall of Famer and former Houston Rockets center Dikembe Mutombo has also revealed that he’s making efforts to round up a potential ownership group to put in an ownership bid.
If the team sells for more than $2 Billion, it will surpass the record set by the sale of the Los Angeles Clippers, which was acquired by Steve Ballmer in 2014. The Houston Rockets are currently the eight most valuable franchise in the NBA.
Neither Beyoncé nor anyone from her or her husband JAY Z’s camps have commented on her interest in owning an NBA franchise.
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