If Alex Rodriguez and Marc Lore win their pending legal battle with Glen Taylor over the Minnesota Timberwolves, the NBA would still need to approve them as the franchise’s new owners.
The league’s due diligence for new control owners, standard in all major transactions, has not yet begun on the pair, commissioner Adam Silver said in an interview at the NBA Cup championship in Las Vegas on Tuesday. Rodriguez and Lore have already been approved as minority owners, a process that happened three years ago when their $1.5 billion purchase agreement was originally executed, but that review is not as in-depth and does not cover the change of control, Silver said.
The NBA plans to begin the larger approval process only if the prospective buyers win an ongoing arbitration battle that is expected to be resolved in early 2025. Once the NBA’s process is complete, team governors would vote to approve the new owners.
That means it could be months before a final resolution comes on ownership of the Timberwolves and the WNBA’s Minnesota Lynx. The arbitration, which began in November, is scheduled to stretch into at least January, Sportico previously reported. It’s also possible that either side could petition a federal judge to vacate the arbitration award, further delaying the matter.
There’s no reason to immediately think the pair might not pass the NBA’s check, typically an in-depth look at background, personal finances and fellow investors. For one, the league already approved the basics of the deal when it was inked back in 2021. Since then, Rodriguez and Lore have raised hundreds of millions from a group that includes league-partnered Blue Owl LP fund (Dyal HomeCourt), and individuals like Mike Bloomberg and Eric Schmidt, who are worth a combined $131.2 billion, according to Forbes.
Lore’s financial situation in particular has also changed over the past few years. The entrepreneur, who helped build Walmart’s e-commerce business, founded food delivery startup Wonder in 2018. The company recently transitioned into a food hall model, and completed a $700 million raise earlier this year. It plans to expand to 90 physical locations by the end of 2025.
The original purchase agreement, signed in 2021, allowed Rodriguez and Lore to buy the Timberwolves and Lynx over four years in four stages—20% upfront, then 20%, 40% and 20%. The buyers successfully purchased about 40% of the teams in the deal’s first two payments, but the legal battle started over the third, which would have given Rodriguez and Lore control of both the Timberwolves and Lynx. They currently owe about $942 million to complete those final two stages, money that was put into escrow earlier this year.
Taylor bought the Timberwolves in 1995 for about $88.5 million. The team went to the conference finals last season for the first time since 2004. The Lynx joined the WNBA in 1999 and were runners-up in the WNBA finals this year. Sportico currently values the Timberwolves at $3.29 billion and the Lynx at $85 million.