The final tally: Prokhorov pays $200 million, plus $180 million in team debt, in exchange for 80% of the team and 45% of Barclays Center arena, which is under construction at the corner of Atlantic and Flatbush avenues. He also agrees to buy $100 million worth of arena bonds. As for how much Prokhorov will reap from the deal, that's hard to say without knowing how revenues will be shared between the Nets and the arena.
And the vote also allows Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner to devote his full attention to what made him wealthy in his own right: building. Indeed, Ratner recently told the Wall Street Journal that he lost around $30 million each season that he ran the team.
Prokhorov's agreement to buy the Nets, and take a stake in the arena that will house them, pulled the entire $4-billion Atlantic Yards project from the brink of a collapse brought on by a slack economy, lawsuits and cost-overruns associated with Frank Gehry's initial design.
"We are pleased that the NBA's Board of Governors approved Mikhail Prokhorov's purchase of majority ownership of the Nets, welcoming into the NBA ownership ranks the league's first majority investor from outside of North America," NBA Commissioner David Stern said in a statement. "We anticipate that his passion for the game and business acumen will be of considerable value not only to the Nets franchise but to the entire NBA."
But not everyone was as fired up about Prokhorov coming to Brooklyn. Several lawmakers called for a delay to the approval due to allegations that Prokhorov earned his billions in part through shady business dealings with Zimbabwe, a country under US sanction. One of the more vocal, New Jersey Congressman Bill Pascrell Jr. (D) said in a statement, "Mr. Stern has refused to confirm or deny to me whether the league's vetting operation looked at Mr. Prokhorov's businesses in Zimbabwe and his investment bank's ties to a massive public corruption scheme." Pascrell, who's district is based in Paterson, NJ, added, "This is simply unacceptable to me and the millions of basketball fans across the country who hold the NBA to a higher standard.
Despite the detractors, the sale likely marks the last major hurdle for the Atlantic Yards arena project in Brooklyn, particularly now that the residents of the arena site have all been removed and the financing is in place.
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