Back in 2017, Joe Tsai was flush with cash. His Alibaba stock was a big hit on the stock market and he was looking to make big investments particularly in sports using his Hong Kong-based “family” office, Blue Pool Capital. He was interested in a number of sports not just his beloved lacrosse. He looked In the NFL and even Formula One racing but being both a smart investor and fan, he chose the NBA and ultimately the Brooklyn Nets, available in part because Mikhail Prohorov was getting pressure from Russian President to sell the team.
The Nets at the time were in the middle of a rebuild on the court, a property more about potential than profit. Still they played in a new arena, had just opened a best-in-class training facility and were located in New York City.
All that is pretty well known but Josh Kosman and Brian Lewis of the Post add a new wrinkle Wednesday. Before Tsai bought a 49% stake from Prokhorov with an option to buy the whole team, he considered linking up with long time Celtics minority owner Stephen Pagliucca whose ties were more New York than Boston.
Pagliuca — born in New York and raised in New Jersey — almost teamed up with Joe Tsai to buy the Nets from Russian oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov in 2017.
“I was honored to be contacted by the Nets in 2017 to look at the club,” Pagliuca told The Post on Tuesday, “but decided after a review that my heart was with the Celtics and subsequently invested more capital in the Celtics franchise and also in the Italian Serie A soccer team Atalanta.”
In a complicated bid structure, Pagliuca — who has been a Celtics minority owner for over 20 years — would have been the Nets controlling owner, though Tsai was actually putting up more of the money.
But Tsai eventually opted against it.
He just bid for the Nets on his own, while Pagliuca bought Serie A’s Atalanta and upped his stake in the Celtics, currently up 2-0 in the NBA Finals.
Tsai and his family office eventually paid Prokhorov $3.3 billion for full control of the Nets and Barclays Center, then invested a small amount— reportedly the assumption of team debt and an agreement to share future profits — for the Liberty. In recent months, Tsai has been in talks with members of the Koch family to sell up to 15% of the Tsais’ holding company BSE Global for as much as $700 million.
- Behind the Nets ownership decision that would’ve drastically altered the NBA - Brian Lewis & Josh Kosman - New York Post