The San Diego Seals lacrosse team is owned by Joe Tsai. He was awarded the National Lacrosse League expansion franchise in San Diego in 2017.
Joe Tsai is also co-owner of the Las Vegas Desert Dogs and is an investor in the Premier Lacrosse League.
When lacrosse fans want to know who owns a team, they are usually wondering if the owner has deep enough pockets to sustain an NLL franchise in the long term.
Seals fans shouldn’t have to worry about Joe Tsai, whose net worth is in the billions. This article looks at his business background, his other sporting interests, and his ownership of the Seals.
Business Background
When Joe Tsai graduated from Yale, he joined an equity investment firm and managed their Asian business line.
His trips to China put him in touch with Jack Ma in 1999. It was perfect timing for both men. Ma was creating a team of co-founders to build an online marketplace. This would eventually be Alibaba.
Tsai was making $700K a year in his investment role. But he jumped ship to join Ma’s team on $600 per year.
Jack Ma soon appointed the younger man as Chief Financial Officer. Tsai was a key part of the rise of Alibaba to its current form. Alibaba is now a giant online retailer with divisions in equity investment, real estate, and other business lines.
When Alibaba was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2014, it raised $25 billion. That was the largest IPO in history at the time.
All the co-founders became multi-millionaires. Jack Ma and Joe Tsai became billionaires.
First Adventures In Sports Ownership
Joe Tsai’s first investment in sports was to purchase a 49% shareholding in the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets.
The owner at the time was Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov. The Russian also owned the Barclays Center, the team’s home arena.
Tsai spent one billion dollars on his initial stake in 2017. Two years later, he paid over two billion for the full NBA franchise and the arena.
By this time, Tsai’s family was living in San Diego. There had been speculation that he would move the Nets to America’s Finest City. But his purchase of the Barclays Center put paid to those rumors.
The same year that Tsai took overall ownership of the Nets, he also purchased New York Liberty. The WNBA team had been up for sale since late 2017.
Tsai led an investment group to buy the team in early 2019. His wife, Clara Wu Tsai, is a co-owner of the team.
Tsai also has minority stakes in a Major League Soccer team. He is on a long list of co-owners of Los Angeles FC. The list includes Will Ferrell and Magic Johnson!
Getting Into Lacrosse
Joe Tsai played baseball and lacrosse at Lawrenceville School in New Jersey. When he went to Yale, he was a walk-on for the lacrosse squad.
When he was spending twenty years building up Alibaba’s operations, he lost touch with the sport. But he reconnected through sponsoring a professional team in Hong Kong.
And that wasn’t the only reason to rekindle his interest in the sport. Tsai’s daughter Alex was a talented hockey and lacrosse player through high school. She also played lacrosse at Stanford.
Enter Steve Govett
After a successful playing career in the NLL and for the Canadian national team, Steve Govett spent fifteen years managing the Colorado Mammoth (he’s also a minority owner).
By 2017, Govett was focused on winning an expansion franchise for San Diego. Joe Tsai’s family was living in the region (Tsai himself divided his team between Hong Kong and the U.S.)
Govett approached Tsai about investing in a box lacrosse team. Once the businessman had examined the opportunity, he was all in.
Tsai Buys The San Diego Expansion Franchise
Joe Tsai purchased the expansion franchise in August 2017.
He had this to say to the local sports fans:
I have a strong passion for lacrosse and look forward to bringing the NLL to San Diego.
Times Of San Diego
Tsai installed Steve Govett as President and Manager of the new franchise. The inaugural season for the San Diego Seals was 2018/2019.
Further Investments In Lacrosse
That wasn’t the end of Joe Tsai’s investments in the sport of lacrosse.
In 2018, Paul and Mike Rabil approached Tsai to get involved in funding a breakaway field lacrosse tournament. Tsai was one of the earliest investors in what is now the Premier Lacrosse League.
In February 2019, Tsai was the lead investor in their Series A Funding round. You can read more in our overview of the ownership of the PLL.
Tsai is also part of an ownership group of a new franchise in the NLL. He joins Wayne Gretzky and others as owners of the Las Vegas Desert Dogs.
Will Tsai Build A Home Arena In San Diego?
Joe Tsai purchased the home arena of the Brooklyn Nets, which then doubled up as a home for his WNBA franchise, New York Liberty.
San Diego lacrosse fans wonder if he’ll go down a similar route with the Seals. They’ve been playing their home games at Pechanga Arena for the time being.
There is hope that the billionaire may get involved with funding a new multi-sports arena in downtown San Diego.
The challenge is that a private build of a new arena is very difficult without a tent pole tenant from the NBA or NHL. And I already mentioned that there is no sign that Joe Tsai would move the Nets from Brooklyn.
However, it should be remembered that Joe Tsai was part of an unsuccessful bid for the NFL’s Carolina Panthers. That was as recently as 2018 in a group led by Michael Rubin.
The group dropped out after the bidding war reportedly went beyond $2.5 billion. That franchise was ultimately purchased by David Tepper.
If Tsai gets his hands on another big sports franchise, then the plan might include relocation to San Diego alongside a new stadium build.
