By Callum Williams, Insider Sport — A group of minority owners in the Golden State Warriors are reportedly open to selling their stakes in the NBA franchise, which recently revealed the team’s potentially mammoth $7bn valuation.
According to Bloomberg, the interested sellers of the 10% stake in the Warriors are anonymous but are valuing their stake in the franchise at $700m, which would catapult Golden State’s valuation amongst the most valuable sports teams in the world.
A Warriors spokesperson commented on the potential stake sale: “Per our organisation policy, we do not comment on the potential sale or non-sale of ownership among our investment group.”
Despite the $700m figure being reported as the asking price for the 10% stake, there has been pushback on the valuation by potential buyers.
A potential $7bn valuation would make the Warriors comfortably the most valuable NBA franchise in the league.
In Forbes’ list of most valuable sports teams, New York Knicks were ranked as the NBA’s most valuable franchise ($5.8bn), just ahead of Golden State at $5.6bn.
However, Sportico, who annually post a similar list, ranks the Warriors’ value at $7.56bn which would deem them the second most valuable team in the world behind the Dallas Cowboys ($7.64bn).
The massive surge in valuation is a testament to the ownership of majority owner Joe Lacob, who acquired the Warriors in 2010 for $450m when the team was perennially one of the worst performing teams in the league.
However, 13 years on and four NBA championships later, the Warriors are one of the most successful teams in NBA history, led by future basketball Hall of Famer Stephen Curry.
This success has also allowed Lacob and his consortium to move the team into a new home arena – The Chase Centre – in 2019, whilst also investing significantly in media, entertainment and a variety of sponsorships and partnerships.
