1) Irv Levin “trades” the Celtics to John Y. Brown for the Buffalo Braves (1978)

We start with one of the strangest franchise ownership changes in U.S. sports history. Levin had purchased the Celtics in 1972, using money he had earned in executive roles for various film production and distribution companies. The team won two championships under his stewardship but many fans were still resentful and untrusting of their Hollywood hotshot owner. With the team struggling in the late ’70s, Levin was antsy to return to Los Angeles but knew he couldn’t re-locate the NBA’s premier franchise to the opposite coast. He managed to find an elegant solution with a willing partner in Brown, a Kentucky Fried Chicken magnate whose ABA franchise, the Kentucky Colonels, folded in 1976 rather than join in the merger. Using the buyout money he earned from the Colonels, Brown had subsequently purchased the struggling Buffalo Braves and in 1978 traded them, straight up, to Levin for the Celtics, in a transaction brokered by David Stern (who was the league’s general counsel at the time). Both owners got what they wanted but in a monkey’s paw curling type of way. Levin was able to move the Braves to San Diego, near his film studio investments, but the team lacked fan interest and hemorrhaged money in its new home and he sold it soon after to Donald Sterling. Meanwhile, the notoriously micro-managing Brown quickly drew the ire of general manager Red Auerbach, who threatened to jump ship to the Knicks if the meddling didn’t stop. The fanbase, ever loyal to Auerbach, turned immediately on Brown, who subsequently sold the Celtics after just one year and returned to his home in Kentucky to launch a campaign for governor.

2) Jerry Buss purchases the Lakers and The Forum from Jack Kent Cooke for cash and real estate properties (1979)

It’s maybe the most impactful franchise purchase in NBA history and it’s now been immortalized in the HBO series “Winning Time.” The Canadian born Cooke had purchased the Lakers in 1965 for about $5 million, adding them to a franchise collection that also included the Washington Redskins, but his real passion was hockey. He successfully chartered the Kings as an NHL expansion franchise in 1966 and built them a beautiful new home called The Forum. The Lakers moved into The Forum as well but even though the team was consistently contending for championships in the ’60s and ’70s, they were an afterthought for Cooke, who sparsely attended games. Dr. Buss had received his PhD from USC in chemistry but found his fortune in real estate, making increasingly lucrative investments around Southern California and New York and subsequently funneling that money into sports ventures. With Cooke embroiled in a divorce settlement so costly it set a Guinness World Record, he sold the Lakers, the Kings, The Forum, and a ranch to Buss for $67.5 million, partially in cash and partially in real estate properties, including the famed Chrysler Building. The shrewd Buss instantly transformed the staid Lakers (and the NBA holistically) into an entertainment juggernaut worthy of Hollywood, best exemplified by the term he coined: “Showtime.” He remained owner for 34 years, earning 10 championships and either drafting or trading for all-time legends in Magic Johnson, Shaquille O’Neal, and Kobe Bryant. Upon Buss’ death in 2013, control of the Lakers was turned over to his older daughter, Jeannie. Thanks mainly to Buss’ vision, the franchise is now valued at approximately $5 billion while the NBA has grown into arguably the most popular professional league in the world.

3) David Stern “convinces” Ted Stepien to sell the Cavaliers to Gordon Gund (1983)
4) Donald Sterling is forced to sell the Clippers to Steve Ballmer (2014)

If Clippers fans think Sterling’s reign of terror was the nadir of NBA franchise ownership history, they just haven’t learned enough about Stepien. A former advertising executive, Stepien made his first venture in sports by forming a professional softball league. One of his big, splashy promotional ideas was to drop softballs from the tallest tower in Cleveland. It was ill-planned, unnecessary, and caused terror in the city, damaging property and injuring several on-lookers. In other words, it was a perfect metaphor for his future NBA ownership. Stepien purchased the Cavaliers in 1980 and owned them for just three seasons but did untold damage over that stretch. He hired and fired six different coaches, including poor Bill Musselman twice. The centerpiece of Stepien’s ineptitude was his trading away of five consecutive first round picks, a strategy so disastrous that NBA had to institute a “Stepien Rule” to prevent it from happening again. When Stepien started openly mulling relocating the team to Toronto, David Stern stepped in, surreptitiously “convincing” the Cavs owner to sell to Gordon Gund, who received compensatory draft picks as a deal sweetener. As for Sterling, the miserly slumlord bought the Clippers in 1979 and then moved them from San Diego to his home city of Los Angeles in 1984. Staying competitive on the court was something Sterling himself admitted was never a necessity or priority, and under his leadership, the Clippers were consistently one of the worst teams in the league. For whatever reason, Stern and the league office were ok with this for decades until 2014, when a tape was leaked of Sterling making racist comments, including ones about Lakers legend Magic Johnson. When players, sponsors, and fans threatened to essentially revolt, Stern finally stepped in, kicking off a lengthy legal battle that ended with Sterling selling the team. His replacement was Ballmer, a former Microsoft CEO whose goofy enthusiasm and extravagant spending (including an upcoming new arena) stand in stark contrast to Sterling’s avaricious and funereal tenure.

5) Time Warner takes over the Hawks from Ted Turner via merger with Turner Broadcasting System (1996)

Atlanta pro sports were in the doldrums in the late ’70s when the television mogul Turner swooped in and revived them. His purchase of baseball’s Braves in 1976, followed two years later by his acquisition of the Hawks, likely kept those two moribund franchises from fleeing The Big Peach. Ever the sharp business man, Turner underpaid for both teams and cashed in royally down the road, boosting their values in large part by putting their games on his cable network. Hawks games became the first NBA contests broadcast nationally on cable television, distributing Dominique Wilkins dunks all around the country on the Turner Broadcasting System (TBS). Turner further expanded his media (CNN, TNT, TCM) and sports (Goodwill Games, Atlanta Thrashers) empires until merging his company with Time Warner in 1996. This deal included his sports franchises and while Turner was no longer in charge of the Hawks, he remained involved, including in 2003, when he may have saved the franchise again from relocating. AOL Time Warner put the Hawks up for sale that year and initially seemed to have a deal with a Texas businessman but at the last minute changed course, selling instead to a consortium that included Turner’s youngest son and his son-in-law. Say what you will about the nepotism and shady dealing but the Hawks, mired in mediocrity in the Time Warner years, did turn things around under this new ownership group, eventually making 10 straight playoff appearances starting in 2008.

6) Mikhail Prokhorov sells the Nets to Joe Tsai for a record $3.3 billion (2019)

Much has been made of Dr. Jerry Buss managing to purchase the Lakers for just $67 million in 1979. If that doesn’t sound like a bargain to you, consider the Nets, a team based in New York but with no real history of success or dedicated fanbase, sold for $3.3 billion in 2019. It was quite a profitable transaction for the seller, Prokhorov, who had purchased the team less than a decade earlier for $200 million. They were still based in New Jersey in 2010 when the Russian billionaire became the first non-North American to own an NBA team. He made immediate moves to relocate them to New York City, settling eventually on Brooklyn, where he heavily invested in the new Barclays Center arena. Say what you want about Prokhorov but he was willing to spend big, albeit mostly on overpriced, aging veterans like Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Deron Williams, Joe Johnson, and his countryman, Andrei Kirilenko. This put the Nets in contention in their first couple seasons in Brooklyn but the bill came due quickly and the team was mostly terrible under Prokhorov, who was additionally distracted by a fleeting presidential campaign against Vladimir Putin in 2012. Somehow, this all worked out for him, selling the team at that incredible profit in 2019 to Tsai, a Taiwanese tech mogul who made his fortune co-founding Alibaba, a Chinese alternative to Amazon and eBay. The $3.3 billion price point is the largest of all time, beating out the $2.2 billion paid by Tilman Fertita for the Rockets in 2017.

7) A group of 32 investors, headed by the Diners Club, purchases the Philadelphia Warriors from Eddie Gottlieb and relocate them to San Francisco (1962)

In 1949, a New York businessman found himself embarrassed at a restaurant when he forgot his wallet and couldn’t pay the bill. This sparked the idea for Diners Club, a company that revolutionized the credit card industry, infiltrated pop culture, and for about a quarter century, owned the Warriors. One of the 11 original NBA franchises, the Warriors were founded by notable sports and entertainment promoter Peter Tyrrell, who then sold the team in 1952 to his coach, Eddie Gottlieb (for just $25,000). Though the Warriors were incredibly successful on the court in their first 16 years, winning championships in 1947 and 1956 and featuring legendary superstars like Joe Fulks, Paul Arizin, and Wilt Chamberlain, they were reportedly not profitable. Gottlieb sold the team in 1962 to a group of investors headlined by the Diners Club, who then immediately relocated the franchise to San Francisco. Though Philadelphia got a replacement just a year later, with the Syracuse Nationals moving in and becoming the 76ers, this transaction is still controversial to this day. Though Gottlieb claimed up until his 1979 death that he was just ready to retire, it’s still widely speculated that the league stepped in and forced the sale because it wanted a second franchise in California. No matter the reasoning, the Warriors actually struggled even more financially in their new home, allowing minority owner Franklin Mieuli to buy up shares from Diners Club and most of the other 1962 investors. With his offbeat personality and eccentric wardrobe, Mieuli became an indelible avatar of the franchise in his 20+ years in charge, which included a championship in 1975.

8) Mark Cuban purchases the Mavericks from Ross Perot (2000)

Relatively stable by today’s standards, the Mavericks have had just three owners in their four decades-plus of existence. The first was Don Carter, a high school dropout who made his fortune in a uniquely American style: helping his mom build a multi-level marketing empire. He co-founded the Mavericks in 1980 and quickly built a solid corporate culture and a dedicated fanbase, which included a young Cuban. Carter was also a staple presence at games, sporting his signature cowboy hat, and it therefore came as a shock when he sold the team in 1996 to Perot, a self-described basketball novice (one enduring theory is that Carter, a devout Baptist, wanted to avoid presiding over the inevitable modern trends of alcohol being sold at concession stands and a dance team performing on the court). The Mavericks continued their trend of awful play throughout the ’90s in Perot’s brief reign but he does deserve credit for presiding over the drafting of Dirk Nowitzki and the hiring of Don Nelson as coach. A stark contrast to the understated Carter and the aloof Perot, Cuban became a clamorous presence as owner after purchasing the team from Perot in 2000, sitting court side for every game, trash talking opponents, and bickering with referees. He concurrently rebuilt the roster in his image, with flashy signings and trades that eventually led to the first and only championship in franchise history, in 2011. During that ’10-’11 title season, Cuban was fighting a court battle against Perot, who was still a minority owner and claimed the team was in financial insolvency. Cuban got the lawsuit dismissed in large part because of that championship proving the franchise was healthy. Meanwhile, Carter also remained a minority owner and a presence in the stands up until his 2018 death. When Cuban received the Larry O’Brien trophy during Dallas’ postgame championship celebration, the first thing he did was hand it to Carter in appreciation of his contributions.

9) Clay Bennett purchases the SuperSonics from Howard Schultz and moves them to Oklahoma City (2006)

Though they were an undeniable Seattle institution, the SuperSonics actually almost left town once before Bennett sealed the deal in 2008. In the early ’90s, then owner Barry Ackerley threatened to skip town if the city wouldn’t replace the ancient and decaying KeyArena. He eventually came to an agreement with the mayor and city council, keeping the Sonics in Seattle in exchange for major publicly funded upgrades to the venue. But that wasn’t enough for the next owner, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, who purchased the team from Ackerley in 2001. This time, the city didn’t budge, having witnessed years of sports owners screwing over municipalities with public capital for stadiums. Schultz called their bluff, selling the Sonics in 2006 to Bennett, who was explicit in his desire to relocate any team to his hometown of Oklahoma City. Bennett kept them in Seattle for two years in a good faith charade before moving to OKC as soon as he got the chance. All of this was pooh poohed but ultimately sanctioned by David Stern, in one of his final and most despicable controversies as commissioner.

10) Charles Dolan’s Cablevision purchases ITT Corporation and gains full control of Knicks (1997)

In the season that James Dolan took over as CEO of the franchise, the Knicks reached the 1999 NBA Finals. Everything that has happened to the team since could be best described as a continuous calamity. How we got to this point is a quintessential modern American story, involving corporate intrigue, hostile takeovers, and the ultimate “fail son” driving a once proud institution into oblivion. It all starts in 1946, when a sports promoter named Ned Irish convinced the Madison Square Garden Corporation, which owned the titular arena, to charter a franchise in the BAA and install him as president. That team was the Knicks and that league soon after became the NBA. In 1977, the team and arena (along with the New York Rangers and several racetracks) were sold to Gulf and Western, a media conglomerate that subsequently merged with Viacom in 1994, turning the Knicks and MSG over to another faceless, tentacled entertainment corporation. But Viacom was disinterested in its new sports properties, even though the Knicks reached the NBA Finals in 1994 while the Rangers won the Stanley Cup. Viacom sold them off to Cablevision, a cable television empire founded by Charles Dolan in 1973, and ITT Corporation, a manufacturing company. Dolan then bought out ITT Corporation’s shares in 1997 to gain full control of the Knicks. He turned over operations to his son James in 1999, a move that Knicks fan may lament until the end of time. In his 20+ years in charge, the younger Dolan has presided over continuous losing seasons, fueled by his baffling hires of executives and coaches like Isiah Thomas, Don Chaney, Derek Fisher, Kurt Rambis, Leon Rose, and Donnie Walsh. Simultaneously, he has further alienated the fanbase with his quixotic feuds with Charles Oakley and Spike Lee, amongst others, his banning of critical fans, his public meltdowns, and his embarrassing blues rock vanity project, JD and the Straight Shot. Knicks fans certainly have other epithets for him, but to us, Dolan is simply a perfect embodiment of the age of declining American empire.