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The Charlotte Hornets have started a new era with the introduction of Gabe Plotkin and Rick Schnall as owners on Thursday, officially ending Michael Jordan’s 13-year tenure as majority owner.
Jordan sold the Hornets to Plotkin and Schnall’s group at a $3 billion valuation and is keeping a minority stake in the team while remaining an alternate governor. Plotkin and Schnall said they each own a similar amount of the franchise.
The two men will rotate the team’s governorship every five years, beginning with Schnall, a former minority owner of the Atlanta Hawks. Schnall was already an investor in the Hornets under Jordan. The Milwaukee Bucks have recently operated under a similar structure with alternating governors instead of one primary owner.
Other notable members of the Hornets’ new ownership group include North Carolina natives like rapper J. Cole and country music artist Eric Church — as well as Dyal HomeCourt Partners, a division of investment company Blue Owl that currently has or had stakes in the Hawks and Sacramento Kings, and Phoenix Suns.
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Schnall and Plotkin said they have no plans to move the Hornets from Charlotte and would like to build a standalone practice facility to improve on the current training gyms attached to the Spectrum Center. A plan for a $60 million uptown practice center had been approved, but Schnall said that nothing further has been decided.
The Hornets’ arena is undergoing $275 million in renovations that Schnall said fans will start noticing this year.
