When majority stake in the Sacramento Kings was sold to Vivek Ranadive and his ownership group back in May, one of the smaller markets in the NBA (20th) made the rest of the owners around the league a lot happier because of the high sale price. Vivek Ranadive purchased 72 percent of the Kings' franchise for $550 million after an initial valuation of $525 million when Chris Hansen and his Seattle-based ownership group agreed to purchase 65 percent of the Kings.
What that did for the Golden State Warriors, the team Vivek Ranadive had minority ownership in before his purchase of the Kings, was shoot their value through the roof of Oracle Arena, only a few years after they were purchased for $450 million by owners Joe Lacob and Peter Gruber. In about 3.5 years since they purchased the Warriors for what at the time seemed like an incredible price, Darren Rovell of ESPN.com reports that the Warriors' franchise is now valued at $800 million.
If industry insiders laughed at the $450 million Joe Lacob and Peter Guber paid for the Golden State Warriors in November 2010, one has to wonder what they would think now.
Less than three years after the two agreed to pay the highest price ever for an NBA franchise, the team is now valued at $800 million, according to a source with knowledge of the terms.
The new valuation comes from the price Silicon Valley venture capitalist Mark Stevens agreed to pay for a share of the team that was made available when former partner Vivek Ranadive had to sell it to buy the Sacramento Kings in May.
In a way, Ranadive's agreement to pay about $550 million for 72 percent of the Kings and their existing arena helped his old partners sell their stake for even more. The $800 million number is still surprising, given that Forbes magazine valued the Warriors in January at $555 million. Warriors spokesman Raymond Ridder declined to comment on the new valuation or the percentage that Stevens bought.
The Warriors are in the sixth biggest NBA market behind New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Dallas-Fort Worth. Having a team in the sixth biggest market in your league with a value approaching $1 billion shows incredible growth in the value of the NBA as a league and shows just how lucrative owning a team can be if you run it the correct way. The Warriors were long one of the more hapless franchises around the league and not until recently did they seem to have some long-term success set up for themselves.
Combine that with the fact that they're scheduled to move into a state of the art waterfront arena in downtown San Francisco for the 2017-18 season and it's easy to see why the franchise looks so promising for future investors, should the current owners consider selling stakes in their team.
