Charlotte Hornets owner Michael Jordan and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban both invested in a sports data company called Sportradar in 2015. Fast forward a few years, the investment could earn the duo a massive amount.
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Michael Jordan was the greatest ever to do it on the court. However, for a large part of his career, he was not compensated for his excellence. To put things into perspective, only 2 out of his 15 years in the NBA was he the highest-paid player in the league.
While he may have a problem with the Bulls seriously underpaying him, His Airness certainly can’t complain about his current net worth, as he made a fortune outside of basketball. While the majority of his money comes from his Nike deal and its Jordan brand, His Airness has also made a ton of investments that have reaped huge dividends.
One such investment by Jordan was way back in 2015, in Sportradar, a sports data company, alongside Mavs owner Mark Cuban, when the duo put in a vast majority of the $44 million funding round. Fast forward a few years, both the NBA team owners are looking at a massive payday.
Michael Jordan and Mark Cuban team up to invest $44 million in Sportradar.
Mark Cuban is a self-made billionaire who made the majority of his money through the sale of broadcast.com. He profited even more after shorting the stock – he acquired $5.7 billion worth of Yahoo! stock from the sale. He acquired a majority stake in the Dallas Mavericks at the start of 2000, forking $285 million.
Since Cuban is a tech-savvy entrepreneur, it made sense that he was part of a data company like Sportradar. However, with this investment, Jordan looks like he is broadening his portfolio. Anyhow, MJ joined Cuban in a $44 million funding round for Sportradar back in 2015. At the time, the company had already agreed to partnerships with the NFL and NHL, and various fantasy sports enterprises.
To the duo’s delight, the investment has aged like fine wine. At a point, the firm was even valued at $4 billion. However, it nearly doubled when the company went public back in 2021. Following its IPO, Sportsradar is now worth a whopping $8 billion!
With two of the sport’s richest figures backing the organization, Sportsradar has great untapped potential as sports betting gets bigger by the day. While exact figures haven’t been released of how much MJ and Cuban receive from the investment, it’s safe to say they’ve earned themselves a huge payday.
