New York Times - Sept. 24, 2009

On the front page of the New York Times today, I learned something I did not know about sports: specifically basketball. One of the lead stories below the fold was the annoucement about Mikhail D. Prokhorov possibly purchasing the New Jersey Nets, a franchise in the National Basketball Association. I learned that the league needs a three-fourths vote (23 out of 30 owners) to pass the purchase and allow Prokhorov to own a large portionof the team. The deal he is proposing would cost him $200 million to purchase the franchise, but in his plan he also wants to move the team to Brooklyn and build a $4.6 billion arena, called the Atlantic Yards. Personally, I think it's catchy and a very interesting story. I saw the plans for the arena in the paper and online, and it looks like a very nice establishment. The deal, if it were to go through, would make Prokhorov the first man from overseas to completely own a professional franchise. Other foreigners own stakes in the Seattle Mariners and the Cleveland Cavaliers, but no one has sole ownership of a team as Prokhorov would. This is a story that I find very intriguing, and I am thoroughly excited to see where it goes from here.