BROOKLYN – With the Brooklyn Nets set to change owners, one of the team’s highest-ranking executives will also step down, multiple outlets reported Friday.
Brett Yormark, chief executive officer of Nets parent company BSE Global, will announce Friday morning he is resigning, Bloomberg’s Scott Soshnick reported. Yormark has been in that position since leaving NASCAR in 2005, and was instrumental in the team’s moving from New Jersey to Brooklyn in 2012.
He has spent the years since leading all aspects of both the team and the Barclays Center.
But Chinese billionaire Joe Tsai, a top executive with retail giant Alibaba who currently owns 49 percent of the Nets, has reportedly purchased the remaining 51 percent of the club (and eventually Barclays Center) from majority owner Mikhail Prokhorov.
Since Yormark’s arrival, the Nets have gone from perhaps the NBA’s least-attractive franchise to one of its most glamourous. Prokhorov bought 80 percent of the team and 45 percent of the arena for $223 million in 2010. When Tsai made his deal for the original 49 percent in 2017, the club was reportedly valued at $2.3 billion.
On the court, the Nets added free agents Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant this offseason, meaning Tsai will take over the team as it enters perhaps the most anticipated era in team history. Durant is expected to miss most or all of next season after suffering an Achilles injury in the playoffs.
–Field Level Media
