J. Cole, Eric Church Buying Charlotte Hornets from Michael Jordan

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J. Cole, Eric Church Buying Charlotte Hornets from Michael Jordan

North Carolina natives and diehard basketball fans J. Cole and Eric Church are part of the ownership group buying Michael Jordan’s majority stake in the NBA’s Charlotte Hornets, the team announced today.

The group is led by Gabe Plotkin (who acquired a minority stake in the Hornets in 2019) and Rick Schnall, the latter of whom is a minority owner of the Atlanta Hawks. Others involved with the sale besides Cole and Church include local Charlotte investors Amy Levine Dawson and Damian Mills, as well as Chris Shumway, Dan Sundheim, Ian Loring, and Dyal HomeCourt Partners.

Cole’s love for basketball is well known. After playing high school basketball in North Carolina, he was a walk-on for the St. John’s men’s basketball team. Though Cole’s rap dreams came to fruition before he ever stepped on the court, the Dreamville Records founder has never given up on his hoop dreams, either. After appearing on the cover of the video game NBA 2K23, he has played basketball overseas in Africa and Canada.

Meanwhile, Church is such a diehard fan of the University of North Carolina Tar Heels that he canceled a concert in April 2022 to watch the team take on the Duke Blue Devils in the Final Four of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.

Of course, both artists have remained busy with their day jobs. Cole recently appeared on Lil Durk’s “All My Life” after featuring on “on the street” by BTS’ j-hope. In January, he dropped “procrastination (broke),” which was recorded after searching “J. Cole type beat” on YouTube. As for Church, he’s currently touring North America in support of his 2021 album, Heart & Soul. Tickets are available here.

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Jordan is giving up the team after a 13-year run as majority owner for a reported $3 billion valuation, according to a report from ESPN insider Adrian Wojnarowski. He will continue to oversee basketball operations through the NBA draft on Thursday and the beginning of free agency on July 1st.

Once the sale is completed, the Hall of Famer will retain a minority stake in the franchise. Jordan initially bought a minority stake in 2006 before paying $275 million for his controlling interest in 2010 — becoming the league’s only Black majority owner in the process.

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