Alex Rodriguez, Marc Lore To Buy Minnesota Timberwolves For $1.5B; Could It Be A SPAC Deal?

One of baseball's greatest players and a retail leader are teaming up on a bid for a professional sports team.

What Happened: 14-time MLB All-Star Alex Rodriguez is teaming up with Marc Lore in an attempt to buy the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves. Lore was the founder of Quidsi, which was sold to Amazon.com AMZN and the founder of Jet.com, which was sold to Walmart Inc WMT.

The duo could acquire the Timberwolves for $1.5 billion, according to The Athletic. Rodriguez and Lore signed documents Saturday to enter exclusive talks to negotiate and finalize a deal in the next 30 days with current Timberwolves owner Glenn Taylor.

Reports say Taylor would stay on as the operator of the team for two years while Rodriguez and Lore transition into running the team.

Related Link: 6 Sports SPACs To Consider For Your Investing Playbook

The ARod SPAC: Earlier this year, Rodriguez launched the SPAC SLAM Corp SLAMU, which still trades as units. Lore is also involved with the SPAC as a special advisor. Given the two being attached to a SPAC searching for a company in the sports, media and entertainment sectors, it's only fitting to think the SPAC could make a run at a sports franchise.

At the time, Rodriguez told Bloomberg SLAM Corp the SPAC didn't intend to take a professional sports franchise public. The SPAC instead was looking for a high-growth technology business with a big addressable market.

Rodriguez and Lore tried last year to acquire the New York Mets Major League Baseball franchise.

“I can only do so many things and that’s why Slam is right at the forefront of my time, my energy and my focus," said Rodriguez. "I'm not saying that 10 years from now we wouldn’t revisit sports.”

Given the interest in a sports team this short after missing out on the Mets, it looks like Rodriguez’s 10-year timeline could be shortened quite a bit.

Until we get any mention of SLAM Corp being involved in the Timberwolves deal, it's not likely the team is using a SPAC deal to go public.

The Athletic reports Rodriguez and Lore would be 50/50 partners joining the existing ownership group and being limited partners for the first two years before taking over ownership. That ownership and time structure could make a SPAC deal less likely as well.

Price Action: Shares of SLAM Corp units closed Monday at $9.96.

Disclosure: The author is long shares SLAMU.

Carlos Correa and Alex Rodriguez meet before Game 4 of the 2015 World Series. Photo via Arturo Pardavila III, Wikimedia.