Report: Lore-Rodriguez acquiring 100 per cent ownership of Timberwolves

The Minnesota Timberwolves ownership dispute finally appears to be over.

Current majority owner Glen Taylor has agreed to transfer complete ownership of the team to the tandem of Marc Lore and baseball icon Alex Rodriguez, per ESPN’s Shams Charania.

Taylor will not appeal the decision made by Minnesota arbitrators who ruled he must cede control to Lore and Rodriquez in February, meaning the NBA can finally begin the transfer of ownership process. The sale is subject to approval by the league’s board of governors, with at least 23 of 30 team owners needing to vote yes.

Moreover, Taylor has agreed on the Lore-Rodriguez group acquiring a 100 per cent stake of the Timberwolves and WNBA’s Minnestoa Lynx.

Lore and Rodriguez had previously agreed to buy a majority stake of the Timberwolves nearly four years ago at a price tag of $1.5 billion. They’ll now take full ownership of both franchises at the same cost.

Taylor, who had originally agreed to the sale, later exercised his right to pull out of the deal after the Lore-Rodriguez pair failed to send the final payment within the 90-day deadline of initiating the purchase. Taylor also cited that Lore and Rodriguez had missed other deadlines throughout the transfer process.

The 83-year-old majority owner of the Wolves (and Lynx) bought the NBA franchise in 1994 for $88 million.

Lore and Rodriguez were blindsided by the decision and defended their integrity, accusing Taylor of having seller’s remorse amid a steady rise in the value of NBA franchises and a breakthrough 2023-24 season for the long-languishing Timberwolves. They blamed the delay in delivery of the final 40 per cent of the payment on the slow pace of the league’s approval process and said they submitted paperwork six days ahead of the deadline.

The years-long dispute made its way to a three-person arbitration panel in February that ruled 2-1 in favour of Lore and Rodriguez.

Lore and Rodriguez have long insisted they have the wealth to make the purchase work. Lore told the Minnesota Star Tribune in an interview the day after Taylor’s decision that he’s in better financial position now than when the deal with Taylor was first struck.

“I’m flush with cash. I’ve got literally hundreds of millions of dollars in the bank, ready to invest in the Wolves and bring home a championship,” Lore said.

Since then, Lore and Rodriguez brought on former New York City mayor and financial media mogul Michael Bloomberg to their investment team. According to an ESPN report last October, they’ve got $940 million in the bank and have now used that financial leverage to completely buy out Taylor rather than leaving the ex-owner with a 20 per cent stake as stipulated by the original purchase agreement.

Entering this year, the Lore-Rodriguez group owned about 36 per cent after the first two purchases — called tranches — with Taylor owning 60 per cent and his limited partners accounting for about 4 per cent.

Forbes valued the Timberwolves at $3.1 billion in its latest projections for NBA clubs published at the beginning of the 2024-25 season, more than double the amount of the original agreement. That ranks just 28th in the league, with the Wolves playing at Target Center, a 34-year-old downtown arena they share with the Lynx that’s owned by the city of Minneapolis.

— with files from the Associated Press