The NBA is "expected to approve" the transfer of Nets
ownership to a consortium at today's Board of Governors
meeting, according to Guy Sterling of the Newark STAR-
LEDGER. The $150M sale must be approved by 22 of the 29 NBA
owners. Newark philanthropist Raymond Chambers, "considered
the prime mover" in the new ownership group, "apparently"
will control about 20% of the team. Others in the
consortium include real estate developers Finn Wentworth,
Stan Gale and Alan Landis, entrepreneur Lewis Katz, former
Chair of King's supermarkets Allen Bildner and his wife Joan
and Chair of Seton Hall's Board of Regents Frank Walsh.
Sterling reports that the acquisition deal allows the team's
current owners to buy back a maximum of 20% of the team, and
five of them -- Alan Aufzein, Jerry Cohen, David Gerstein
and Henry and Joseph Taub -- are "planning to retain a small
stake" in the franchise. Meanwhile, the NJ Sports &
Exposition Authority (NJSEA) extended the Nets' current
lease at Continental Airlines Arena. Under the new deal,
which runs through the end of the 2007-08 NBA season, the
Nets are allowed to leave the Meadowlands "at any time,"
although they would be penalized if they left NJ before
2004. A move to Newark "would invoke no financial penalty"
(STAR-LEDGER, 10/28). In N.Y., Charlie LeDuff writes that
the lease deal ended "months of speculation that the team
might abandon" the Meadowlands for Newark or Long Island
(N.Y. TIMES, 10/28). Also in N.Y., Fred Kerber notes the
Nets were "dissatisfied with the archaic lease they had been
working with [and] had an out following next season in their
agreement which ran through 2021" (N.Y. POST, 10/28).
