Forest City Enterprises is "shopping its stake" in the Nets and has "valued the team" at $1B, according to Daniel Kaplan of SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL. The valuation "comes amid rapidly escalating expectations for what basketball clubs are worth." Evercore Partners Managing Dir Lyle Ayes, whose company was hired by Forest City to sell its 20% share of the team, said, "We feel so confident on the billion … because every team will benefit from the new national TV deal." Kaplan cites sources as saying that the NBA is expecting to "double its rights fee from national media with new deals after the current national agreements with ESPN and Turner Sports" expire in '15. Ayes also cited the Nets’ local TV deal with YES Network as "a factor in the valuation." That deal pays the Nets around $20M annually, a "relatively low figure for a team in the country’s largest market." The Nets-YES deal does not expire until '16, but the two sides have "begun negotiating a new agreement." The "surprising valuation" placed on the Nets is "an assessment made solely on the team and not including its Barclays Center home." Forest City owns 55% of the arena and "has not said if it intends to do anything with that ownership" (SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL, 5/12 issue).
