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Hornets among NBA teams to face a possible reckoning on media rights

Bally Sports Southeast has media rights for Charlotte Hornets games as part of a contract signed in 2018. (DAVID JENSEN)
(DAVID JENSEN)

CHARLOTTE — One of the first challenges for the new Charlotte Hornets owners will be the NBA franchise’s media rights. This month, the team disclosed that majority owner and chairman Michael Jordan had reached an agreement with an investment group led by Gabe Plotkin and Rick Schnall to sell controlling interest in a deal that values the team at $3 billion.

Jordan bought majority control for $275 million in 2010.

Under Jordan, the Hornets — then known as the Bobcats — went from losing tens of millions of dollars each year to consistently turning profits. Team President Fred Whitfield recently told CBJ that reworking the franchise’s media rights contributed revenue and increased exposure after a short-lived experiment to create a Bobcats-owned network failed, followed by an affiliation with a limited-distribution regional news channel.

The stability afforded by the team’s decade-plus alliance with Fox Sports South — the company Whitfield moved the team’s games to in 2008 — has been upended by industry uncertainty (cord-cutting) as well as the cable network’s parent going into bankruptcy in March.

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