Oracle CEO Larry Ellison is a noted sports fan. He competes in the America's Cup, bought a tennis tournament and has at least engaged in talks about purchasing an NBA team on several occasions. Though Ellison's attempts to be the owner of a professional sports franchise have not panned out so far, he has a solid back-up plan: he's going to buy one of the Hawaiian islands.
The Los Angeles Times reports that Ellison is on the verge of completing a deal to buy 98 percent of Lanai, the sixth-largest island in the Hawaiian archipelago. Ellison reportedly plans to bring agriculture and jobs back to the pineapple island that was once owned by the founder of Dole.
The deal is only running Ellison about a cool half-billion dollars, which you would think could get him a sports team already. Heck, he could afford nearly half of the Los Angeles Dodgers for that kind of scratch!
But sports team ownership has eluded the poor guy. The hard-luck but lovable loser has been rumored to be in talks to buy the Memphis Grizzlies, among other teams. Heck, there were once reports that he was going to buy the New Orleans Hornets and move them to San Jose. I'm just going to guess you can buy the Hornets for less than half a billion dollars.
I'm just going to guess, but I think Ellison's to-do list might look something like this:
1. Make billions of dollars
2. Acquire naming rights to stadium
3. Compete in America's Cup
4. Buy tennis
5. Buy a sports team -- maybe Hornets????
6. Develop Pier 30/32 in San Francisco into gigantic yacht complex
7. ROBOT UMPIRES
8. Have custom crown and scepter made
9. Punch a cloud
10. buy hawaii lol