Junior Bridgeman buying stake in Milwaukee Bucks, team valued at $4 billion

Businessman and former NBA player Ulysses Lee “Junior” Bridgeman is buying a 10% stake in the Milwaukee Bucks, according to three sources familiar with the deal. The transaction will value the team at $4 billion.

NBA owners will be notified of the sale in a memo Thursday, added the sources, who asked to remain anonymous because the details of the deal are not public.

Bridgeman, the current owner of Ebony and Jet magazines, is getting a preferred limited partner discount of 15%, or a $3.4 billion valuation, to buy a portion of the team that he played for from 1975 to 1984, the sources said.

He is reported to have a net worth of more than $600 million after finding success in a variety of businesses ranging from fast-food chains to being a Coca-Cola bottling distributor.

Bridgeman and the Bucks did not immediately respond for comment.

The Milwaukee Bucks are owned by Jimmy and Dee Haslam, Wes Edens, and Jamie Dinan. The three ownership groups each have about a 25% stake in the team.

This would mark the first NBA sale since the league signed an 11-year media agreement with Disney, Comcast‘s NBCUniversal and Amazon Prime in July.

The deal shows the Bucks, a small-market team, are continuing to grow. When former Milwaukee Bucks co-owner Marc Lasry sold his 25% stake in the team to the Haslams last April, the team was valued at about $3.2 billion.

The team, which finished third last season in the NBA Eastern Conference, is losing money because it paid a reported $52 million luxury tax last season. The Bucks will likely pay a hefty luxury tax this season as they are paying Giannis Antetokounmpo $48 million, Damian Lillard $45 million and Khris Middleton $31 million for the 2024-2025 season.

The Bucks have two won NBA championships, in 1971 and 2021.

Disclosure: NBCUniversal is the parent company of CNBC.