Larry Ellison Close To Buying Golden State Warriors

Oracle boss Larry Ellison is close to a deal to purchase the Golden State Warriors, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Wednesday.

Ellison, the billionaire co-founder and CEO of the Redwood City, Calif.-based enterprise software giant, has long been linked to a takeover of the troubled NBA franchise, which plays its home games at Oracle Arena in Oakland, Calif.

Ellison outbid other prospective buyers, including 24-Hour Fitness founder Mark Mastrov, the Chronicle reported, citing unnamed "sources close to the negotiations." The current owner of the Warriors is Sonic Communications founder Chris Cohan.

While four current minority owners of the Warriors would retain their stakes in the franchise, Ellison would control 80 percent of the team, the Chronicle reported. Should the deal go through, the Oracle CEO will wind up paying anywhere from $315 million to more than $400 million for the team, according to the newspaper's sources.

Ellison is already a famous international sportsman, steering his BMW Oracle sailing team to victory in the most recent America's Cup in Valencia, Spain. He's also earned a reputation as a businessman who is willing to outbid Oracle's high-tech competitors, notably with the billion-dollar acquisitions of PeopleSoft, BEA Systems and Sun Microsystems.

Should Ellison acquire the Warriors, he would join several NBA owners with roots in the high-tech industry, including Portland Trailblazers owner and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, whose early entrepreneurial career included running and subsequently selling system integrator MicroSolutions.

The Warriors have struggled during Cohan's 15-year run as owner. The team only made the NBA playoffs once during that time, falling in the second round to Utah in 2007, and finished the 2009-2010 season in fourth place in the Pacific Division with a 26-56 record.