It happened.
In my post yesterday morning about potential endgames in Robert Pera’s bid to purchase the Grizzlies, I wrote that a partnership between Pera and local investors, if paired with contract language that further strengthened the city’s grip on the team, would be the best-case scenario for which fans should hope. I also wrote that if Pera were willing to add that kind of contract language that he would likely find locals willing to buy in. It’s a scenario I proposed days after Pera’s name first emerged, when he was being presented as a solo buyer who would acquire the small remaining percentage of the team still owned by locals in addition to Michael Heisley’s majority stake. At the time, it was merely a personal daydream scenario — the way I thought things could play out in a perfect world, not necessarily the way things would play out. But now it’s on the verge of being real.
Kyle Veazey and Geoff Calkins reported in the Commercial Appeal last night that Pera has reached agreement with a local group led by current minority owners Pitt Hyde and Staley Cates, and including new local investors, to join his purchase bid, with roughly a third of the franchise’s ownership going to the local investors — approximately the same ownership stake that locals had with Heisley before their shares were diluted down to around two percent.
In order the make this happen, the deal includes multiple provisions — in place for the next 15 years — that strengthen the local grip on the team, including reinstating the right-of-first-refusal option that locals once had with Heisley.
This is great news for Memphis. As I outlined yesterday, such a deal has the potential to further stabilize the franchise, repair the frayed relationship between the franchise and the local business community, and do so without sucking up too much free money that can be put to arguably more important civic and philanthropic uses.
