Robert Kennedy Jr. "gave" Lulana to Barron on behalf of the Kennedy family, and Barron gladly accepted it, as this would also deepen his friendship with the Kennedy family.
On the surface, you may not feel it deeply, because there don't seem to be many members of the Kennedy family in American politics now, and there are no overly powerful figures - except for Edward Kennedy who is still able to carry the family banner, the other young generations have not made many achievements.
But in fact, the Kennedy family still has a great influence in the Democratic Party. This can be seen from the fact that Kerry, who competed with Bush Jr. last time, was promoted by the Kennedy family, and the next candidate, Guan Hai, also received strong support from the Kennedy family on his way to the top.
Therefore, maintaining Barron's influence in the United States and maintaining good relations with the Kennedy family is also a very important part - it can be said that the Kennedy family is an important member of the American Ansa Group.
However, Barron does not need to rely too much on the Kennedy family for the later arrangements regarding Lulana. In such matters, his own strength can also be reflected.
The most critical problem for Lulana is that her family in Russia is threatened by the gangs there.
In this regard, although Barron's influence has not yet involved Russia, Abramovich, who has a close relationship with him, is one of the Russian oligarchs. These things are nothing more than a matter of his words.
For Barron, it was just a matter of a word from him to Abramovich. Abramovich, who hoped to integrate into the European upper society, was eager for the opportunity to deepen his friendship with Barron.
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"Although Bruce Laettner did not object to selling the team, he wanted $500 million, which is too high for the current team."
At this time, Cab Harber, CEO of Pioneer Sports Group, also came to New York. After meeting Barron, he said this.
"Indeed, but Bruce Laettner is just a businessman. He doesn't care about the team at all. He just wants to make money through the team..."
Barron shook his head and said:
"So you can talk to him about the new stadium and Atlantic Courtyard project..."
What they were talking about was also the main reason why Cab Harbour came to New York this time. Pioneer Sports Group's acquisition target was placed on NBA teams, and Bruce Laettner, whom they were talking about, was the owner of the Nets at the time.
Just as Baron said, Bruce Letterman bought the Nets for other reasons. He mainly wanted to move the team from New Jersey back to Brooklyn, New York, because he already had a piece of land in Brooklyn and was planning to build a real estate project called Atlantic Court.
If he could get the league to agree to move the Nets back to Brooklyn, he would be able to convince the government to build a subway in the name of building a new arena, and then sell his Atlantic Court project for a high price.
So from the beginning to the end, Lightner's mind was not on team building at all.
In fact, when he took over, the Nets were not weak. They had three star players, Carter, Kidd and Jefferson, and had previously reached the NBA Finals.
After he took over, he only thought about saving money and sold all the star players one by one.
However, the reality went against their wishes. Without their star players, the Nets' game attendance plummeted and television broadcast revenue also declined. As a result, the team suffered losses year after year.
In the future, the team's losses exceeded 30 million in the 2008-09 season alone.
Now that the league has agreed to move the Nets back to Brooklyn, and the local government has approved a plan to build a subway to the new arena, the team will no longer mean much to Laettner, who will instead require continued investment and become a burden.
But Laettner himself is a shrewd businessman. Since Pioneer Sports Group took the initiative to acquire the Nets, he would naturally ask for a sky-high price first.
But Baron is no pushover. He knows that in his previous life, in 2009, Laettner sold 80% of the Nets' shares to Russian tycoon Prokohorov for $220 million. In fact, the sale price of these shares was only a symbolic $1. At the same time, he assumed a total debt of $220 million and the operating expenses after Laettner purchased the Nets. He spent another $223 million to buy 45% of the shares of the Nets' new arena, and invested $120 million to become one of the shareholders of the Atlantic Court project.
The reason why the Nets were sold so cheaply was that after the subprime mortgage crisis, Laettner's financial situation had reached a very critical point. Without these capital injections, the properties he mortgaged for the construction of the new arena and the Atlantic Court project would be reclaimed by the bank. He would have to give up the Nets and keep his own real estate projects.
In fact, even now, he has not yet fully raised the funds to build a new stadium.
The Nets' new stadium in the future will be called the Barclays Center.
Does this name sound familiar to you? It is because Laettner did not have enough funds to build the arena, and the construction of the arena was once hindered. As a result, he had to sell the naming rights of the arena to Barclays Bank, and the name of the new stadium became Barclays Center.
Therefore, Baron's meaning is very clear, that is, the price of acquiring the Nets can be negotiated, but $500 million is absolutely impossible.
However, Laettner himself values the new stadium and the team much less than his real estate project Atlantic Yards. Therefore, Pioneer Sports Group can change its strategy and ask Laettner to lower the selling price of the team. They can bear all the construction costs of the stadium and fully own the stadium in the future. They can even invest in part of the Atlantic Yards project to solve Laettner's funding problems.
It's not that they can't afford $500 million, but no one's money comes from the wind. Even if they know that the Nets will be worth more than $3 billion in the future, and through Baron's memories of his past life, they can first introduce some potential players - instead of being like the Russian tycoon, after taking over the Nets, although he invested heavily in buying many heavyweight stars, those stars were past their prime and the team's performance still did not improve - after Baron's operation, the Nets' performance will definitely be greatly improved, and it will be more valuable in the future.
But if he can save money, why would he be willing to be taken advantage of?
At worst, I can wait another two or three years. After the subprime mortgage crisis, I'm afraid Laettner will cry and beg me to buy the Nets.
By the way, it is also worth mentioning that many Chinese people are also familiar with the new owner of the Nets after the Russian billionaire Prokohorov, the first foreign owner of the NBA. He is the third-generation chairman of Alibaba, Joseph Tsai, who is also the first Chinese owner of the NBA.