In a meeting with the media Lithuanian businessman Gediminas Ziemelis revealed his desire to buy an NBA team in the near future.
According to delfi.lt, Ziemelis hopes to make this dream happen within the coming 5 years, possibly sooner than that.
“[My] personal goal is to buy an NBA team. After 5 years (maybe sooner) you will see. But [to do that] as business, not as a toy. There is an algorithm what to do with an NBA team since players are well chosen”, said Ziemelis, who is the Board Director of the Avia Solutions Group, a group of aviation business companies.
Based on his calculations, 75% of of a team’s shares would cost around $700 million. He also revealed which NBA team is the cheapest as well as the most expensive:
“You don’t have to buy 100% [of shares], a part should be left to the locals – unions, municipality. The cheapest team – the New Orleans Pelicans, costs $1 billion, the most expensive – the New York Knicks, $3.8 billion”.
Ziemelis already has a plan on how to make a business of owning an NBA team be profitable:
“You build a bigger arena in another city, buy two stars, take Sarunas Jasikevicius as a coach, the other players have to be cheap. The stars attract spectators, you increase ticket prices from $125 to $200.
“A double number of seats in arena allows to collect more money from tickets, you also run a new trend “cybernetic sports”, also you can earn from sales – people also come for shopping, not necessary watch basketball.
“For example, footballer Cristiano Ronaldo move to Juventus for €100 million and on the first day sold shirts for €70 million. It paid off in a week. It’s all simple”, concluded Ziemelis.
