Michael Heisley
Michael Heisley
Michael E. Heisleywas an American businessman and former majority owner of the Memphis Grizzlies. He orchestrated the move of the team from Vancouver in 2001, after promising to keep the franchise in Vancouver when he purchased it in 2000. He agreed in 2006 to sell his 70% controlling stake in the Grizzlies to a consortium including Christian Laettner and Brian Davis, but the group missed a deadline for the purchase and Heisley found no other bidder willing to meet the...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBusinessman
Date of Birth13 March 1937
CountryUnited States of America
I don't think you can play for that. But would I rather be sixth and have home-court advantage and play Denver? Yes. I don't want to give Denver something to put up on the bulletin board. Obviously, I'd rather be at home to start the playoffs. It would great to be home. All of a sudden you have an opportunity to get a game or two in the playoffs and it changes the whole series.
I've made it clear for some time if somebody came up with the right offer, I'd consider selling the team. It wasn't a secret in Memphis or, really, around the country.
I don't think anybody has demonstrated the financial wherewithal to buy the team. We're not at the point where we're even close to selling the team. And I have to tell you ... I'm not actively looking. We have people come to us and we listen.
I have spent my career making a difference with underperforming assets.
I tremendously enjoy getting involved in a troubled situation and straightening it out... My interest would be if there was a situation that came up, and I thought I could do something with and the price was right, I would be interested.
I was considered one of RCA's brightest young people. Then one day, I found out we'd been sold. They didn't even consult me.
Pau Gasol is extremely popular in Spain. I don't know how much he sells, but I get nothing in Spain. The money goes to the league, and they use it for whatever they choose to use it for to run the league.
There's very little substitute in the business world for making money.
If you look at my business record, I basically love to do turn-arounds. That's where I made all of my money.
I come from the operations side of the business, and I buy companies to operate them, not to flip them.
How much you accumulate is a byproduct of what you enjoy doing in life. And I enjoy buying companies.
I hope to continue acquiring companies, not so much for the accumulation of wealth but because it's what I do well, and you always like to do what you do well.
The handwriting is on the wall: if you want to have your franchises viable, then you can't have a situation where New York and Chicago and Los Angeles are doing very, very well, and some other teams are, but, I would say, a significant percentage of the teams in our league are struggling financially.
The market is telling us that the prices are too high and we're doing what we have to do to attract people to the game.