Марк Лор Миннесота Тимберволвс болон Линкс багийн хяналтын хувьцааг 4.5 тэрбум ам.доллароор Марк Стадад зарна

MINNEAPOLIS — Marc Lore is selling his controlling interest in the Minnesota Timberwolves and Minnesota Lynx to limited partner and Dragoneer Investment Group founder and managing partner Marc Stad at a $4.5 billion valuation, team sources told The Athletic, facilitating the NBA’s second abrupt ownership shift in a little more than a week.

Lore will remain a part of the ownership group in a limited role, but he is stepping away from his role as governor to focus on taking Wonder, his food delivery and takeout business, public, said the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the deal has not been finalized.

Alex Rodriguez, who has served as co-chairman with Lore, will remain in his role with the Timberwolves and Lynx. He is now pairing with Stad at the forefront of ownership while Lore takes a step back.The plan is for Rodriguez to serve as the more public-facing member of the ownership group, those sources said, with his experience as both a star athlete and a television analyst for baseball giving him comfort in the public spotlight. He is also expected to spend the most time on the ground in Minnesota, where he owns a home.

Lore and Rodriguezjoined the franchise as limited partners in 2021, though Rodriguez has been the more visible of the pair in Minnesota over the past year as Lore devoted more of his time to Wonder.

Stad founded Dragoneer, which manages over $35 billion in capital, according to Forbes, in 2012. Stad had been a limited partner in the group helmed by Lore and Rodriguez, working behind the scenes as they charted a course forward for the organization.

Stad and his wife, Elisa, will now serve at the head of the ownership table. Elisa will be the designated governor for the Timberwolves to allow Marc Stad to be fully engaged at Dragoneer. Elisa spent two decades working around the globe as an executive in consumer branding before the couple co-founded the University of California-San Francisco’s Stad Center for Pediatric Pain, Palliative & Integrative Medicine.

Rodriguez will retain his position as governor of the Lynx, who are in first place in the WNBA standings as the playoffs approach behind the play of rookie phenom Olivia Miles and veteran Napheesa Collier.

Unlike the wholesale changes that rocked the Los Angeles Lakers when Mark Walter stunningly sold to Joshua Kushner and Bob Iger last week, the Timberwolves’ transaction amounts to a reorganization of team structure. Lore goes from the largest single investor to a limited partner, with less money tied up and more time to devote to Wonder. Stad moves up from No. 3 to No. 1. Rodriguez holds firm as the second-largest shareholder.

The group’s stated plans to build a new arena in the Twin Cities and keep the Timberwolves in Minnesota for the long term are unchanged, the team sources said.

That said, this still represents a monumental shift just over a year after Lore and Rodriguez assumed full control of the Wolves and Lynx following a bitter battle with previous owner Glen Taylor.

Lore has been a large, charismatic presence since joining the team. In his first season, he sat courtside and would take off his shoes as the Timberwolves completed a win, his version of Red Auerbach’s victory cigar. He was in the war room on draft night, consulting with president of basketball operations Tim Connelly on potential moves, and promised from the very beginning to keep the Wolves and Lynx in Minnesota.

“We are not moving the team, ever,” Lore said after he and Rodriguez took full control last year. “We’re never moving the team.”

Lore and Rodriguez purchased a minority share of the teams from Taylor in 2021 and set forward a three-step plan to gradually assume majority control through a series of payments. Taylor tried to back out of the agreement in 2024, saying Lore and Rodriguez had not met the parameters of the deal.

That touched off a war of words between the two sides and kicked off a season-long arbitration dispute. Lore and Rodriguez prevailed and were approved by the NBA’s Board of Governors in the summer of 2025.

“We will use every ounce of effort here to enforce the contract that Glen broke,” Lore said of his commitment to prevailing in 2024. “So that means time, capital, whatever means necessary.”

That makes his transition out of the lead chair even more surprising.

Lore has been dogged from the start by whispers around the league that he didn’t have the money to be the lead governor of an NBA team, fueled in part by Taylor’s public assertions that Lore could not come up with the cash necessary to close the deal in the first place. Lore vehemently denied those charges at every turn, and he could point to the NBA approving his group’s acquisition of the Timberwolves and Lynx after a thorough vetting of his finances as a rebuttal to those characterizations.

In June, he also approved a trade for former All-Star point guard LaMelo Ball that put the Timberwolves over the first apron and into the luxury tax.

“I’ve got hundreds of millions of dollars of liquid capital sitting in the bank ready to invest should it be necessary,” Lore said in 2024.

Lore entered the organization preaching a mantra of “VCP” — vision, capital, people. He pledged to reinvent how sports teams are run and spoke about creating a “long-term, sustainable culture of winning on and off the court.” Just over a year after finally wresting full control away from Taylor, Lore is now passing the baton to Stad and Rodriguez.

Two of Lore’s biggest accomplishments during his run were leading the recruitment of Connelly away from the Denver Nuggets and helping rebuild the bridge between the Timberwolves and estranged icon Kevin Garnett, clearing the way for Garnett’s No. 21 to be retired next season.

Lore is keeping his courtside seats at Target Center next to Rodriguez and will continue to be available for some of the bigger-picture projects, including helping to develop the plans for a new downtown arena.

When he bought the teams, he called it a dream come true and said he planned to own them for “the next 30 years.” But the self-described serial entrepreneur is so immersed in trying to build Wonder into a public company that he felt he no longer had the time to fulfill his daily duties as Wolves governor, team sources said. He also stands to receive an incredible return on his investment. Lore and Rodriguez bought the franchise at a $1.5 billion valuation.

Stad maintained an under-the-radar but important presence as a limited partner. He consulted with team personnel, including during the recruitment of LeBron James this summer, team sources told The Athletic on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the matter. He kept a low profile but built a strong friendship with Lore and Rodriguez. He now will take on a more prominent leadership role with the team.

The transition figures to be a smooth one given that all three have already been involved in the stewardship of the franchise. Stad has been fully versed on the roster-building plans and the team’s long-term vision. That means that, about six weeks before training camp opens, there do not figure to be any major changes of the kind that can often come when ownership changes hands.

Stad grew particularly close with Rodriguez, and now the two will serve as the primary partners to carry Minnesota basketball forward.

Lore turned down opportunities to sell his controlling interest for more than the $4.5 billion valuation at which Stad is purchasing it, a league source familiar with the market told The Athletic on the condition of anonymity because the discussions were private. But Lore chose continuity over price tag to ensure all of the work the group has done over the past year could continue uninterrupted.

Stad takes over at a critical juncture for both franchises. The Timberwolves advanced to back-to-back Western Conference finals in 2024 and 2025 before taking a step back last season with a second-round loss to the San Antonio Spurs. Anthony Edwards recently turned 25 and is approaching his prime, and Connelly made another splashin June to acquire Ball in an effort to push the Wolves back into contender status.

With Jaden McDaniels, Rudy Gobert and coach Chris Finch also returning, the Wolves will enter next season with high expectations.

The Lynx, meanwhile, will enter the playoffs as one of the favorites to win the WNBA championship. The title would be the fifth for head coach and president Cheryl Reeve.