Getty Joe Lacob, Peter Guber, Bob Myers and Rick Welts of the Golden State Warriors.
As much as the majority owner Joe Lacob loves to talk, people respect him for the lasting success he has sustained with the Golden State Warriors.
The Warriors were a franchise that was considered a laughing stock in terms of being competitive before Lacob was involved. The fans were known to be passionate and supported the team through thick and thin. Yet, they could never establish a winning culture. Then Lacob and Peter Gruber paid $450 million to purchase the Warriors from Chris Cohan in 2010, and the rest is history.
Through the 12 seasons under the Lacob regime, they have accounted for four titles, while making it to the Finals six times. Calling them a dynasty is a foregone conclusion, especially when you make the Finals half the time.
As it stands now, the Warriors are worth approximately 5.6 billion dollars according to Forbes, second in the NBA after the Knicks.
Lacob Has Standing Offer to Buy the Oakland Athletics
With the Warriors bolting for San Francisco, and the Raiders going to Las Vegas, the Athletics remain the only team in Oakland. The Oakland Coliseum, where the Athletics play, was built in 1966 when it used to consider one of the more esteemed ballparks in MLB. But with almost every other ballpark upgrading to new and better stadiums, the Coliseum is one of the more archaic playing fields that still house professional teams.
Lacob details how he has remained interested in purchasing the team for over a decade and wants to keep the Athletics in Oakland if it were up to him.
“I’ve had a standing offer to buy the A’s from John Fisher for I don’t even know how long. Over a decade,” Lacob said. “It’s up to him; it’s his business. It would have been smarter to sell to me a long time ago because we would have been partners, and he would have been able to own a part of the Warriors as well. I tried to tell him that. I would have done a ratio deal.”
Imagine what the Athletics franchise could be if Lacob took over. Baseball is not the same as basketball, but Lacob has a track record of knowing the right guys to hire to build an infrastructure for sustained success.
Warriors Owner Previously Had Deal in Place for Athletics
Back in 2005, Lacob had a deal in place to buy the Athletics for $180 million from Stephen Schott. Unfortunately, the MLB commissioner at the time got in the way, and instead the team was sold to Selig’s close friend, Lew Wolff.
“I had the A’s done,” Lacob told the Chronicle. “It was just taken away from me. You know what, everyone’s confident in their own abilities, obviously. I think we would’ve had a stadium a long time ago if I had bought it. That’s just me.”
As always, the confident Lacob thinks a new stadium would have already been done in Oakland, and there would not be so much chatter about the Athletics moving out of Oakland.