Alex Rodriguez, Marc Lore Say They’ll Complete T-Wolves Sale Despite Expired Option

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Alex Rodriguez and Marc Lore still plan to buy the Minnesota Timberwolves and Minnesota Lynx despite majority owner Glen Taylor’s Thursday statement that their option to acquire a controlling interest had expired, Sportico’s Eben Novy-Williams and Eric Jackson reported.

“We’re going to be the owners of the Minnesota Timberwolves,” Lore said, per Novy-Williams and Jackson. “It’s just a matter of time, and how much pain Glen wants to put the fans, the players, the town and community through. It’s his choice. It didn’t have to be this way.”

In the Thursday statement, Taylor said that Rodriguez and Lore did not complete the purchase by the contractual deadline of March 27 and that they did not meet the qualifications for an extension.

“The Timberwolves and Lynx are no longer for sale,” Taylor said.

Lore and Rodriguez accused Taylor of “fabricating a story in order to back out of a deal that was no longer financially advantageous,” per Novy-Williams and Jackson.

“It is now personal,” Rodriguez added, via Jon Krawczynski and Shams Charania of The Athletic. “We can be in this (fight) for five years, 10 years, whatever. We’re not going to let go.”

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

The report echoes a statement shared Thursday by a spokesperson for Lore and Rodriguez, which called Taylor’s statement “an unfortunate case of seller’s remorse,” per The Athletic’s Jon Krawczynski.

Jon Krawczynski @JonKrawczynskiA spokesman for Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez says Taylor is having “an unfortunate case of seller’s remorse.” pic.twitter.com/dvfJaYDKm9

Taylor agreed to sell the Timberwolves to Lore and Rodriguez in 2021 under a contract that gave the new owners four years to purchase the teams for $1.5 billion.

Lore and Rodriguez currently own 40 percent of the teams. The final payment would grant them another 40-percent stake and complete their bid for majority ownership, per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.

The prospective owners said there is a clause in this agreement that offered buyers “an automatic 90-day extension” if they’ve submitted signed financial paperwork but are still waiting for NBA approval, Novy-Williams and Jackson reported.

Lore and Rodriguez said they submitted this paperwork on March 21, six days before the deadline, per Novy-Williams and Jackson.

Taylor acknowledged that buyers could receive an extension “under certain circumstances,” but added that “those circumstances did not occur.”

Lore and Rodriguez ran into some trouble securing the latest round of funding when the Carlyle Group backed out of the investment, Jackson and Novy-Williams reported on March 19.

Carlyle and the prospective owners were “unable to agree on a structure that the NBA would approve,” Jackson and Novy-Williams wrote.

Krawczynski and Shams Charania reported for The Athletic on March 20 that Lore and Rodriguez had acquired a new investor, Dyal Capital Partners, to help them submit the final payment.

Krawczynski and Charania noted at the time that the Timberwolves’ new ownership structure still needed approval by the NBA Board of Governors.

While Lore and Rodriguez did not confirm they were suing Taylor and the Timberwolves organization, Lore told Novy-Williams and Jackson that their lawyers were in communication with the NBA and that they were willing to “take whatever actions are necessary to protect our childhood dream here.”

The Timberwolves went from a 23-win lottery team to a 50-win title contender between 2021 and 2024. The team currently holds a market valuation of $2.94 billion, according to Sportico.