But I think we have some breaking news. I want to be extra clear on this. Uh, this is reporting being done by Mike Ozanian or Ozanian, apologize if I mispronounced that, uh, who is listed here as a senior sports reporter for CNBC. Uh, I’ll read the tweet that was put out earlier today. Multiple sources have told me, that’s meaning Mike, not me, Tim, me, the tweeter. Uh, multiple sources have told Mike Ozanon that Tom Dundon is close to selling a significant LP stake in the Carolina Hurricanes at a $2 billion valuation. Dundon is in the process of buying the Portland Trail Blazers for over $4 billion. That last part we already knew, but obviously Mike wanted to remind you, and I will as well. There’s, there’s a few Unknown things that I’m going to just put out there that I, I don’t know, um. Does significant LP stake. Is is Is that a threshold? Like, is there a certain percentage that needs to be, you know, could significant be 2%? Could significant be 10%? Does significant have to be majority? I don’t, I don’t know in a business term if significant is of any kind of hard and fast rules. Well, I think significant in my eyes would not mean majority because majority means majority. Significant in my eyes is could be somewhere around 30%, 40%. OK, I mean that to me, that’s still a significant amount now that that would still give Tom Dundan governance over the team though, exactly, which would be an infusion now again. Listen, I’m a sports radio host. I’m not an entrepreneur of any kind. I’ve never owned any kind of publicly traded anything. Um, but I assume that would just mean he needs the cash to go to the trailblazers deal, right? It wouldn’t impact the canes necessarily in any way cause he would still be the, uh, majority owner, he would still carry all of the the decision making power, um, and on top of that, it’s not even like He’s, he would be selling a a stake in the canes in order to get money to put into the canes. He’d be getting money to put into the trailblazers, uh, which is in Portland and doesn’t exactly affect us. OK, here’s a little bit more on this. So this is coming from Front Office sports, OK, so I actually looked on this a little bit more. Uh, this comes from Ben Horney or of Front Office Sports. Uh, saying, uh, Tom Tom Dundon is in talks to sell a minority stake in the NHL’s Hurricanes to raise cash for his purchase of the NBA’s Trailblazers. Front Office Sports has learned. Dundon has been holding discussions with potential investors about a minority stake in the Hurricanes. According to two sources familiar with the matter. One source says the steak sale is aimed at providing Dundon with more cash to pay for the Blazers, which again, he agreed to buy back in August for north of $4 billion. So if the evaluation, so, um, If the evaluation turns out to be accurate, which again, that $2 billion it will represent one of the highest ever for an NHL franchise. Boom. Yeah. Uh, if you, we’ve, we’ve gone over a few times, the like the sportico evaluations and everything and how much they’ve gone up or down. Uh, for the Carolina Hurricanes year to year, I believe, if my memory serves correctly, the most recent estimates from Sportico were $1.92 billion so a $2 billion dollar evaluation, maybe even a little north of that kind of makes sense, uh, because people don’t get the opportunities to buy into professional sports teams that often, and because the supply is so low, oftentimes the, the price is a bit higher. Now traditionally that’s for buying the majority of a team. Um, but, but if, if you just want to be the, the second banana in the canes system, you know, probably cost you quite a pretty penny. Actually back on Tuesday of last week, so just over a week ago, it was actually Michael Zanian of CNBC Sports, uh, actually posted the article about valuations. Of franchises in the, in the NHL and the Carolina Hurricanes came in ranked 15th in terms of total value at $2 billion. And their year over year value change from last year was that the highest change. It was 53% value growth from last year to this year. And that’s again, according to Michael Zengan. So this, this, this guy’s been on it, which makes a, uh, Makes makes it makes sense for why a investor may want to uh. You know, own part of the Carolina Hurricanes, even if that means they don’t get to, you know, uh, be the one voting on things league-wide or the one that that Eric Tolsky has to check with before making a big trade, uh, they, they can. Simply just see a a growth on their investment because the canes have been growing at a pretty rapid rate and I don’t see the hockey slowing down from a success standpoint, and and that’s obviously gonna gonna help things. So, uh, that’s why I, I, before we brought up the tweet from from uh Ozanian, I, I intentionally said like, don’t want anybody to get too excited. I, I think this is more, you know, bringing someone else into the Canes maybe inner circle, but It’s really more about Tom Dundon’s agreement to buy the Portland Trail Blazers than anything else, and, you know, Like the, uh, the great Kevin Hart stand up, right, the way my bank accounts set up. I got, I got a checking and I got a savings and it takes 3 to 5 business days for my money to move from savings to checking and that’s gonna take some time. Uh, he’s just, he needs to take some of the money that he has, uh, some of the value that he has in the Carolina Hurricanes and move that over to the Portland Trail Blazers. Um, again, I don’t know all the rules, but I do know every league has a different requirement on the percentage that the majority owner owns. Uh, some, I think it’s 41%, you have to own at least 41% if you’re gonna be the majority owner, some over 50%, and then whatever the the deals are. So, you know, you could own 100% of the canes or perhaps enough to be the majority owner of two different sports franchises, uh, but you would have to have other people owning the rest, right, the completing the the pie. So that’s, that’s where I’m standing. If I misspoke on any of that and you’re an entrepreneur at home going, oh, this guy’s never owned a business, you are 100% correct. Uh, but I don’t think, you know, this, this adds up to much other than Tom Dundon growing his sports portfolio. Do we root for the Portland Trail Blazers now, knowing that if they do well, they get more money, and then Tom Dundon’s pockets are are lined and perhaps that could bounce back this way? Because right now, obviously selling the canes, minority stake, will benefit the Portland Trail Blazers, so they’re rooting for good business on the Kae side of things. Like are are we suddenly like huge Scoot Henderson fans? Uh, Is that, is that a weird way to think about it? It feels a little weird to think about it that way, like if they start printing money out there. Do we not have to worry about deferred contracts as much? Like is is, well the the concourse at the Lenovo Center suddenly look awesome. I don’t know, it’s already been improved, right? Uh, the driver Tim Donnelly 999 the fan, just a little bit of, uh, business news for you. Canes aren’t going anywhere, folks. I, I. The best news about it is they’re attractive to a minority investor, minority stake investor, because things are going so well, uh, because you’re winning, because business is good, because you’re filling the arena, because merch is selling, because valuations are going up, because you have these young core of players signed a long-term contracts like No good business person is like, is that business really cranking? Let me buy it and change everything. No, it’s like things are going well, they just wanna they just wanna roll.
