Chargers get a Tom of their own while Brady heads for Raiders

Chris Roling | Oct 19, 2024

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Los Angeles Chargers

The Las Vegas Raiders landing Tom Brady as a minority owner of the franchise wasn’t the only major news in this area over the last week.

Elsewhere, the NFL approved Detroit Pistons owner Tom Gores as a new minority owner of the Los Angeles Chargers.

According to CNBC’s Michael Ozanian, Gores paid $750 million to buy 27 percent of the Chargers. Per that writeup, it was actually a 30 percent discount against the team’s valuation of $5.83 billion.

The 27 percent is an unusually large number for a minority owner within a franchise and is more than any of the individual Spanos family members, with the report saying 24 percent is from Dea Spanos Berberian's original stake, plus one percent each from Dean, Alexis and Michael Spanos. Per Ozanian, Gores is three percent under the required stake for a controlling owner and he will be a limited partner with no input on team operations.

Over in Las Vegas…the story is a little different.

Brady purchased roughly 10 percent of the Raiders and Mark Davis has already at least semi-joked that Brady will help them draft their next quarterback. Yes, it's probably worth wondering if and when Brady might eventually reach that 30 percent stake.

The Chargers adding Gore (or vice versa, anyway) isn’t nearly as interesting, but few moves any pro team could pull off would be compared to Brady-Raiders. If nothing else, it clears up some suite-level chaos while Jim Harbaugh and Co. worry about the on-field product.

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