Mikhail Prokhorov Is Going To Make A Killing On The Brooklyn Nets Sale

Estimates for what the team will sell for vary. Peter Schwartz, an expert in valuations, told Bloomberg that the team is worth $1.3 billion.

Forbes has the Nets as the fifth-most valuable team in the league at $780 million. But Forbes valuations have been really low in recent years. The Milwaukee Bucks sold for $550 million when Forbes had them at $405 million. The Los Angeles Clippers were valued at $575 million by Forbes before they sold to Steve Ballmer for $2 billion.

The Clipper sale, combined with the league's unexpectedly lucrative new TV deal, suggest that the Nets sale is going to be a monster.

The Clippers sold for 3.48-times their Forbes valuation. When you used that multiplier on the Nets, they'd be worth $2.7 billion. Prokhorov bought the team for $200 million in 2010.

The Clippers are a way better basketball team than the Nets, but other than that there are some similarities between the two franchises.

Both are in premiere markets. Both have neighboring teams with larger fan bases. Both play in new arenas (or new-ish in the Staples Center's case).

It's also important to note that Ballmer bought the Clippers before the league signed a new TV deal with ESPN and Turner.

The deal will pay the league an average of $2.66 billion per season for nine years - a significant increase from the $930 million per year the league made under the previous deal. Most expected the new deal to total $2 billion per year.

About half of that new revenue will go to the players, but the rest of it goes to the owners. All 30 teams in the NBA stand to make an extra $25 million per year from that TV deal alone.

Prokhorov lost $144 million on the team during the 2013-14 season because he spent an unprecedented amount of money in luxury tax payments for going over the salary cap. But with the skyrocketing values of NBA franchises, it's safe to assume his investment is going to pay off whenever he pulls the trigger on a sale.