Tesla chair and Blackbird companion Robyn Denholm, has one-upped Atlassian’s Mike Cannon-Brookes, half proprietor of US NBA crew the Utah Jazz, by shopping for a whole basketball league, the WNBL.
The deal between the Wollemi Capital Group Syndicate (WCGS) and Larry Kestelman’s Nationwide Basketball League (NBL) consortium to amass a majority stake within the Ladies’s Nationwide Basketball League was signed final week.
From April subsequent yr, Denholm’s household workplace, Wollemi, will personal 49% and the NBL, 29%. Basketball Australia retains the steadiness of the shareholding.
Denholm additionally has a 30% stake within the Sydney Kings males’s crew and Sydney Flames within the WNBL. Her daughter Victoria, CEO of Wollemi, is the Flames president.
Whereas no worth was disclosed, the Australian ladies’s competitors had been valued at as much as $35 million.
The 15-week ladies’s season obtained underway not too long ago, with the Flames at the moment seventh out of the eight groups.
Larry Kestelman owns 94% of the lads’s competitors, having initially purchased in to the comp in 2015 and subsequently turning across the financially-troubled league.
The WNBL’s new co-owner, Robyn Denholm. Picture: Anna Kucera
The takeover was described as a transformative second for Australian ladies’s sports activities.
“Ladies’s basketball in Australia boasts a exceptional legacy and an much more promising future,” Robyn Denholm stated.
“We’re thrilled to play a number one function in shaping its subsequent chapter, offering the help and funding wanted to raise the game for many years to return.”
Victoria Denholm stated they need the WNBL to be a sporting powerhouse that displays the recognition of the sport for the numerous Australians enjoying it.
“Our League is house to among the most gifted athletes with inspiring tales,” she stated.
“We’re dedicated to amplifying these tales and elevating ladies’s skilled basketball, making certain it reaches new heights each on and off the court docket.”
Basketball Australia CEO Matt Scriven stated it was an thrilling stage of the long-term imaginative and prescient of the WNBL.
“The WNBL continues to draw world class expertise and the extent of business, attendance and viewers engagement up to now in season 24/25 demonstrates the chance forward. We are going to proceed to work carefully with the consortium in making certain that the momentum of the WNBL continues past the switch in April subsequent yr.”
Larry Kestelman, stated the WNBL is Australia’s oldest skilled ladies’s sporting league.
“It deserves to be showcased on the identical degree as different elite competitions,” he stated.
“This acquisition unlocks an thrilling new period of progress, visibility, and alternative for gamers, followers, and the game as a complete.”
Alongside a love of sport, Wollemi Capital has invested in a spread of Australian startups – most not too long ago visa software platform Matilda Migration in addition to plant-based supplies startup Alt.Leather-based
The sector additionally has basketball followers from the game, with basketball legend Andrew Bogut a daily angel investor.
Or possibly simply purchase the ladies’s league.
