National Basketball Association

Report: Hawks could sell for over $1 billion

Published Feb. 25, 2015 11:40 a.m. ET

foxsports

The Atlanta Hawks have officially been on sale for a little over a month, and the process of finding new ownership is going swimmingly. Yesterday was the deadline for non-binding preliminary bids from interested potential owners, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and the current market for NBA teams combined with the number of interested owners could push the sale price north of $1 billion.

The sales price for the Hawks and Philips Arena is expected to begin at $800 million and could exceed $1 billion. The sales process was believed to take until April to complete. However, one person familiar with the situation indicated it could now take until May or June.

That might seem like a hefty price tag for the Hawks, even given their recent success, but it's just the cost of doing business. A recent study by Forbes.com found that the average value of an NBA team is currently $1.1 billion. That number is buoyed to a large extent by the most valuable franchises, as only 11 teams were valued at $1 billion or more in said study.

But that average value of $1.1 billion might understate the going rate for a team in the open market with multiple bidders. Forbes valued the Clippers, for example, at $1.6 billion, and Steve Ballmer eventually purchased that franchise for a reported $2 billion.

Regardless of where the final dollar amount ends up, one thing is certain: It's a good time to be a member of the Hawks organization.

(h/t AJC.com)