The owners of the NFL’s Cleveland Browns, Jimmy and Dee Haslam, have reached an agreement with Marc Lasry, co-owner of the Milwaukee Bucks, to acquire his shares of the NBA franchise for 3.5 billion dollars, according to the network ‘ESPN ‘.
If the transaction is closed, pending the approval of the NBA, the Bucks will become the second highest-paid NBA franchise ever, behind the Phoenix Suns and the Phoenix Mercury, recently sold for 4,000 million dollars.
Lasry has 25% of the Bucks, according to the aforementioned source.
The $3.5 billion deal will also represent the third most expensive sale in American sports history, currently led by the $4.65 billion sale by the NFL’s Denver Broncos.
On February 8, Mat Ishbia completed the acquisition of the Phoenix Suns of the NBA and the Phoenix Mercury of the WNBA, franchises sold by Robert Sarver after the scandal of abuse and vexatious acts towards their employees.
Ishbia, founder of United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM), the largest loan company in the United States, received the go-ahead from the NBA and closed negotiations that began at the end of 2022 for 4,000 million.
“This culminates the dream of my life. I deeply love basketball, but this is something much more important to me. In my life, basketball gave me a second family, an education, a lot of joy, “Ishbia said then, who was recently the protagonist of the signing of Kevin Durant.
