Joseph "Joe" Tsai is the principal owner and NBA governor of the Brooklyn Nets.

Current Nets ownership

  • Joseph Tsai, co‑founder and executive vice chairman of Alibaba Group, holds full ownership of the Brooklyn Nets and the Barclays Center through entities he controls.
  • The NBA’s Board of Governors unanimously approved the sale making Tsai the principal owner and governor of the team in September 2019.

How he became the owner

  • Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov was the previous majority owner before selling a 49% stake to Tsai in 2017, with an option for Tsai to later take over control.
  • Tsai exercised that option and completed the acquisition of full ownership in 2019, at the same time also buying the Nets’ home arena, Barclays Center, in a separate deal.

Recent context and narrative

  • Coverage over the last few seasons often frames Tsai as a hands‑on, globally minded owner, balancing the star‑era fallout (Durant, Irving, Harden) with a longer‑term rebuild approach.
  • Fan discussions on Nets forums and subreddits frequently debate Tsai’s decisions, with some praising his willingness to spend and others criticizing roster and coaching moves tied to the team’s uneven results since the superstar era.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.