cowboyjoe
Well-Known Member
- Messages
- 28,434
- Reaction score
- 757
Kroenke's plan to transfer ownership of NHL, NBA teams to family has precedent
Posted by Mike Florio on April 16, 2010 6:03 PM ET
FOX 2 in St. Louis recently reported that Rams minority Stan Kroenke is prepared to transfer ownership to a family member of the NBA's Denver Nuggets and the NHL's Colorado Avalanche if necessary to secure permission to purchase the 60-percent chunk of the Rams that he is entitled to buy under the terms of his agreement with the heirs of Georgie Frontiere.
Though the league won't comment on whether merely transferring ownership of the Avalanche and the Nuggets to other family members will permit Kroenke to circumvent the cross-ownership rules, a reader recently pointed out that, in 2003, a similar plan by the family that owns the Buccaneers was deemed to be appropriate.
Specifically, the Glazers were attempting to buy the Los Angeles Dodgers, and then-Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said that the purchase would not require the Glazers to sell the Buccaneers. "Yeah, we've talked to them, and our understanding is that they are looking at it as a family opportunity that would be consistent with our rules on cross ownership," Tagliabue told the St. Petersburg Times in April 2003. "That basically means that whatever they did would involve independent resources, independent finances and independent management, separate from the Buccaneers, even though it would be possibly a family member."
Even though the NFL didn't -- and still doesn't -- have a team in L.A., the fact that it's a potential market falls within the scope of the cross-ownership rules, which permits the owner of an NFL team to own other sports franchises only in the same market or in a market the NFL would not occupy. Tagliabue said that the Glazers could purchase the Dodgers "[a]s long as the resources are separate and the financing is separate and there are no cross covenants and/or cross guarantees on any of the financing with the Bucs and no integration of any of the management."
It wasn't the first time family ownership of teams in different markets hit the NFL's radar screen. "We've addressed that in other situations," Tagliabue said. "When Charles Dolan of Cablevision was interested in acquiring the Jets several years ago, his brother owned the Cleveland Indians and we looked at ownership in the NFL and the same family owning a team."
In Kroenke's case, he has an estimated net worth of $3 billion. His wife, a niece of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, has an estimated net worth of $2.6 billion. So it would be an easy fix for Stan to simply hand the pink slip to the Avalanche and the Nuggets to Mrs. Kroenke.
Posted by Mike Florio on April 16, 2010 6:03 PM ET
FOX 2 in St. Louis recently reported that Rams minority Stan Kroenke is prepared to transfer ownership to a family member of the NBA's Denver Nuggets and the NHL's Colorado Avalanche if necessary to secure permission to purchase the 60-percent chunk of the Rams that he is entitled to buy under the terms of his agreement with the heirs of Georgie Frontiere.
Though the league won't comment on whether merely transferring ownership of the Avalanche and the Nuggets to other family members will permit Kroenke to circumvent the cross-ownership rules, a reader recently pointed out that, in 2003, a similar plan by the family that owns the Buccaneers was deemed to be appropriate.
Specifically, the Glazers were attempting to buy the Los Angeles Dodgers, and then-Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said that the purchase would not require the Glazers to sell the Buccaneers. "Yeah, we've talked to them, and our understanding is that they are looking at it as a family opportunity that would be consistent with our rules on cross ownership," Tagliabue told the St. Petersburg Times in April 2003. "That basically means that whatever they did would involve independent resources, independent finances and independent management, separate from the Buccaneers, even though it would be possibly a family member."
Even though the NFL didn't -- and still doesn't -- have a team in L.A., the fact that it's a potential market falls within the scope of the cross-ownership rules, which permits the owner of an NFL team to own other sports franchises only in the same market or in a market the NFL would not occupy. Tagliabue said that the Glazers could purchase the Dodgers "[a]s long as the resources are separate and the financing is separate and there are no cross covenants and/or cross guarantees on any of the financing with the Bucs and no integration of any of the management."
It wasn't the first time family ownership of teams in different markets hit the NFL's radar screen. "We've addressed that in other situations," Tagliabue said. "When Charles Dolan of Cablevision was interested in acquiring the Jets several years ago, his brother owned the Cleveland Indians and we looked at ownership in the NFL and the same family owning a team."
In Kroenke's case, he has an estimated net worth of $3 billion. His wife, a niece of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, has an estimated net worth of $2.6 billion. So it would be an easy fix for Stan to simply hand the pink slip to the Avalanche and the Nuggets to Mrs. Kroenke.